Hurricane Matthew Shifts Track, Likely Missing New England

Hurricane Matthew is a major problem in Florida right now. It is expected to regain Category 4 status as it makes its Florida approach.

Multiple forecasters said New England would probably experience at least very rough coastal conditions, maybe more, as the storm crept up the East Coast. But it looks like a late turn will spare us of anything too disruptive.

That's great news for the coastlines of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. But it begs the question: Why did Matthew go from rolling our way to rolling out?

There are many moving pieces as to why a storm acts the way it does and goes where it goes, but NECN meteorologist Aaron Perry provided Patch with a more concise, technical answer.

"Matthew’s pronounced turn is a result of its interaction between a sub-tropical ridge over the Atlantic Ocean and an upper level trof crossing the Upper Midwest and Great lakes on Friday, now forecasted to be stronger/faster than before, thereby forcing Matthew to turn right after the Carolinas," he wrote in an email.

Rhode Island meteorologist Jim Laurie, who still warns of some rough surf on our south coast, explains it this way:

"Instead of Matthew continuing up to the northeast, a strong high pressure system out of the eastern Great Lakes moves east. Since everything in the atmosphere moves towards lower pressure, Matthew will become 'stuck'. Matthew will not have an avenue to make any progress further north, since there is no cold front, or any type of frontal boundary. Also, in the upper levels of the atmosphere, there are no winds to give Matthew any steering."

There you have it. Matthew's right-hand detour should spare us. Even Weather.com, which was one of those predicting more gloom and doom into the weekend, has lightened up its forecast. Saturday still has the threat of evening showers around much of the state, but the bullet looks to have been dodged.

Forecasters always stress how difficult it is to peg what a hurricane may or may not do a couple days out. In recent days, the consensus seemed to be the storm was going to head up the East Coast, and even if drifted offshore quite a bit, we'd still be hammered on the coast.

But just like New England weather, things can always change.