Copious amounts of moisture associated with Hurricane Matthew resulted in heavy rainfall (map | text list) and widespread flooding across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic US during the 07 October to 09 October 2016 period. Hourly images of the MIMIC Total Precipitable Water (TPW) product (above; also available as a 22 Mbyte animated GIF) showed the high TPW values that spread from Florida to the Mid-Atlantic states; all-time record high TPW values were measured via rawinsonde at Jacksonville, Florida and Charleston, South Carolina, with a record high value for the month of October at Newport/Cape Hatteras, North Carolina (Tweet). For more details, see the Weather Underground blog.

Matthew set numerous records for intensity, longevity, and landfall (summary) — an animation of hourly GOES-13 Water Vapor (6.5 µm) images covering the 11-day period from 12 UTC on 28 September to 12 UTC on 09 October is shown below (also available as a large 113 Mbyte animated GIF). The CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site posted GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) animations from the individual days of 03 October, 04 October, 05 October, 06 October, 07 October, and 08 October.

The combination of high winds and flooding led to widespread power outages, with over 2 million homes and businesses without power. A comparison of nighttime Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images from 28 September (before Mattthew arrived) and 09/10 October (after the passage of Matthew) showed a notable reduction in the glow of city lights in areas with no power (below; images courtesy of William Straka, SSEC). Note that the presence of patchy clouds on all 3 images tended to diffuse or even obscure the appearance of city lights below, depending on the thickness of the cloud layer(s).

As clouds cleared in the wake of Hurricane Matthew on 09 October, a Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) image at 1859 UTC, viewed using RealEarth (below), revealed patterns of turbidity in the offshore waters of the Atlantic Ocean from Florida to North Carolina; this increased turbidity was a result of high amounts of particles suspended in the water due to a combination of mixing from prolonged high winds and runoff from inland flooding.

About 8 hours later, a Terra MODIS Sea Surface Temperature (SST) product image at 0243 UTC on 10 October (below) showed a large eddy of warm Gulf Stream water (with a maximum SST value of 85.2º F, darker red color enhancement) surrounding a pocket of cooler water (with a minimum SST value of 78.5º F, darker blue color enhancement) off the coast of South Carolina.

The VIIRS Instrument on Suomi NPP provides data that are used in a River Flood Product (discussed previously on this blog). The product uses three reflective bands (I01, I02, and I03 at 0.64 µm, 0.86 µm and 1.61 µm, respectively) and the infrared window band I05 at 11.45 µm. The image below (courtesy of Sanmei Li at George Mason University) identifies many flooded regions over North Carolina. In particular, the flooding near Goldsboro and Lumberton is identified.

A sequence of 1 pre-Matthew (06 September) and 3 post-Matthew (09, 10 and 12 October) Terra/Aqua MODIS false-color RGB images from the SSEC MODIS Today site (below) also helped to highlight areas of flooding (darker shades of blue, especially notable along river valleys) that resulted from the heavy rainfall.