Jose's location and strength.. which could be determined by whether he is still tropical, sub-tropical, post-tropical, or a messy mish-mash of the three .. will likely have significant influence on the future track of Maria. Heading into sunset tonight, deep convection can be seen blowing up near or just about over Jose's exposed LLC Jose potentially has another day or two left over warmish, mostly Gulf Stream waters, before his forecast track kicks him over cooler SSTs, which would likely speed up his post-tropical transition. A very weak or basically non-existent Jose in a few days could result in the closing up of the weakness through which Maria would otherwise probably find her way eventually out to sea with.

Really cool and unique sunset view of Hurricane #Jose from #GOES16 - exposed center and bubbling deep convection just to the NW of the cntr pic.twitter.com/ucjlmtKDCQ
— Dan Lindsey (@DanLindsey77) September 18, 2017