Storm’s 50-mile difference between disaster and catastrophe
Hurricane Matthew’s close-but-not-quite-direct-hit path along the Florida and Georgia coasts skirted the difference between disaster and catastrophe, meteorologists said. Even though Matthew eventually made landfall in South Carolina as a minimal hurricane Saturday, the path it took in the days before was a stroke of luck for the United States that meteorologists will spend years trying to understand and explain. Here are some questions and answers about Matthew’s path that one meteorologist likened to threading a needle: — Q: How…