Hurricane Matthew makes landfall at Haiti

ALBANY — While there’s uncertainty on the path that Matthew, a category 4 hurricane that was aiming for Cuba and Haiti on Monday, will take, projections indicate it’s unlikely to veer toward Southwest Georgia or affect the region’s weather.

The National Hurricane Center’s projections for Matthew, which was packing sustained winds of 145 mph, was for it to continue moving north before at north-northwest turn sometime Wednesday.

The eye of the storm was located inland on Haiti at 8 a.m. today after Matthew made landfall near Les Anglais about 7 a.m. today. Warnings have been in effect for life-threatening rain, winds and storm surge since Monday.

The center is expected to return to open water in a couple of hours. Eastern Cuba and the Bahamas also are expected be hit, but projections after that have the storm possibly touching the east coasts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas or moving farther east into the Atlantic as it continues on a generally northward track.

“It’s really early to tell” the path of the major hurricane, Jeanie McDermott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, said Monday afternoon. “There’s still uncertainty in the path.

“At this point, we really don’t know how large it’s going to be.”

Early indication for the impact on Georgia are rain and possibly winds in the eastern and central portions of the state, she said.

“Uncertainty is really high at this point,” McDermott said.

The National Hurricane Center late Monday afternoon said the government of the Bahamas had issued a hurricane warning for the central Bahamas and a watch for the northwestern islands. Hurricane warnings had already been issued for Jamaica; Haiti; the Cuban provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Granma and Las Tunas, and the southeastern Bahamas.

Southern Haiti and southwestern Dominican Republic were expected to be hit hard by Matthew, getting 15-25 inches of rain with some isolated areas getting as much as 40 inches. Eastern Cuba and northwestern Haiti were looking at 8-12 inches, with isolated instances of 20 inches, while Eastern Jamaica faced 5-10 inches (isolated 15-20 inches), and the Bahamas, 8-12 inches (isolated 15 inches).

“Some fluctuations in intensity are possible during the next couple of days, but Matthew is expected to remain a powerful hurricane through Wednesday,” NHC officials said Monday afternoon. “Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 40 miles from the center, and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 185 miles.”