Did Hurricane Matthew Ever Get Anywhere Near Cat 5?

By Paul Homewood

Damage from Hurricane Matthew

I was away when Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti, so did not get the chance to analyse it.

According to the official records, it hit 160 mph sustained speeds on 1st October, making it the first Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane since 2007. Apparently, if you believe the official view of events, Matthew intensified from a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale to a Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours.

However, extremely suspiciously, it only stayed at Cat 5 for 6 hours, before weakening. (In fact, NOAA’s records are at 6-hourly intervals – Matthew reached Cat 5 speeds of 140 Kts at 6.00am on Oct 1st, but dipped to Cat 4 speeds of 135 Kts at 12.00 am. Therefore it stayed at Cat 5 speeds for UNDER 6 hours.)

However, as I have pointed out before, these categorisation of wind speeds are not based on actual measurements, as they would have been in the past. Instead, they are derived from Track History, which in NOAA’s own words is defined as:

Track history for each storm is created from the operational warnings that are issued every six hours by NHC, CPHC , and JTWC . The positions and intensities are best estimates of those quantities when the warning is issued. THESE ARE NOT BEST TRACKS – having not been reanalyzed in any systematic manner.

So, somehow, Matthew’s windspeeds are supposed to have risen precipitously not in actuality, but because that is what was forecast by NOAA.

But what actually happened?

Whether we trust what the satellites tell us or not, NOAA’s actual plots show that Matthew barely got above 100 Kts, and nowhere near the green line, which is the Best Track which they forecast, and on which all of the hyped news reports have been based on. (100 Kts would put Matthew as a Cat 3).

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/products/tc_realtime/storm.asp?storm_identifier=AL142016

The above figures are based on the well accepted Dvorak system, but NOAA also use their Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), which is an instrument on the NOAA operational polar-orbiting satellites, to estimate cyclone intensity.

According to these measurements, Matthew barely reached Cat 1.

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/products/tc_realtime/storm.asp?storm_identifier=AL142016

As we know, this is not the first time that hurricanes and typhoons have been wildly overhyped by the authorities. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are looking at anything else but blatant fraud here.

It is tragic that lives were lost during Hurricane Matthew, and I do feel guilty in trying to make an issue of it. But the eco-loonies are prepared to tell outright lies about weather events such as Matthew, in order to procure their socialist world view.

The simple reality is that hundreds of lives are lost because of hurricanes in countries like Haiti, not because of wicked, greedy Westerners, but because they are so poor and underdeveloped.

If we genuinely want to help them, we should be helping them to develop their economies, not force on them our guilt ridden, liberal agenda.