Last updated September 29, 2021
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Hurricane Matthew 2016

United States

After a catastrophic landing in Haiti and then soaking Florida, Hurricane Matthew made landfall on the southeast coast of the United States on October 8, 2016, unleashing record-breaking rainfall and storm surge and driving historic flooding and destructive winds along the coasts of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia.

Matthew set records for storm tide at multiple locations along the Southeastern United States, aided by sea level rise which significantly extended the reach of the storm surge. Record breaking rainfall was fueled in part by record-breaking levels of atmospheric moisture above the Southeastern US, reflecting the process by which climate change drives extreme precipitation. As global temperature increases, the capacity of the atmosphere to hold and dump more water grows. At the same time warming of the oceans increases evaporation, making more moisture available to the atmosphere.

Matthew loosed an epic deluge in the Caribbean with one weather station in the Dominican Republic recording over 22 inches of rainfall over just 13 hours. Unusually warm seas also fueled Matthew's rapid intensification and sustained the hurricane which broke the record for maintaining Cat 4/5 strength in October. Matthew first spun up into a hurricane on September 29, surging from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane in just 36 hours, a stunning development consistent with the observed trend toward rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones.

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Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Global Warming
Air Mass Temperature Increase
Sea Surface Temperature Increase
Land Surface Temperature Increase
Atmospheric Moisture Increase
Intense Atlantic Hurricane Frequency Increase
Glacier and Ice Sheet Melt
Thermal Expansion of the Ocean
Extreme Precipitation Increase
Storm Surge Increase
Sea Level Rise
Large Scale Global Circulation Change
Runoff and Flood Risk Increase
Wind Damage Risk Increase
Coastal Flooding Increase
Tropical Cyclone Steering Change
Hurricane Matthew 2016