MIAMI _ Maybe don't put those storm shutters away this weekend after all.
As Hurricane Matthew continued on a path Thursday afternoon that would spare South Florida the worst of its Category 4 winds, the National Hurricane Center's five-day forecast showed the storm on a path that might have it heading back toward the region around the middle of next week.
While it's hardly certain, the 5 p.m. Thursday forecast shows Matthew likely skirting the East Coast, turning east around South Carolina and making a wide U-turn back south into the Atlantic Ocean. By Tuesday afternoon, the cone of uncertainty shows the storm could be anywhere from the coast off North Carolina to the Bahamas and possibly back on a track toward South Florida _ but, hopefully, as a significantly weaker tropical storm.
Some computer models predict Matthew will actually pass through the peninsula on a southwesterly track.
"It's a possibility but it's very uncertain," said Chuck Caracozza, a National Weather Service meteorologist. "There are several models that are showing it do that loop, but it's so far out that it's very uncertain."
Caracozza also said it's difficult to predict with any certainty how strong the storm would be by the middle of next week.
Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters blamed the loop on the Bermuda High, a seasonal weather pattern blocking Matthew's path north.
"The Bermuda high is a very large high pressure system that fills most of the Atlantic," he said. "It's got bulges in it and a bulge is going to push westward over North Carolina and block Matthew from moving north."
Once it blocks Matthew's path, the storm is likely to get steered by prevailing westerly winds that loop it back south. However, the likelihood that Matthew slams Florida and the Bahamas twice as a hurricane are slim. First it's got to survive stiff 63 mph wind shear forecast for later in the week, Masters said.
"When hurricanes start doing loops like this," he said, "the forecast accuracy gets really low."
