remember three years ago watching lili get up to cat 4 in the gulf, then spin down dramatically before hitting louisiana? that sort of thing can always happen.. there are lots of unexpected internal changes a hurricane can undergo and lose a lot of its punch. i personally still think it will be a cat 3 at landfall. already too far west for my central panhandle idea to work... over between biloxi and pensacola the greatest danger exists now.
just say a prayer that it finds some way to spin down in the next 18 hrs or so. it's happened before, it can happen again.
elsewhere.. 98L's organization and convection are improving some. the system is now near 40w.. it's going to be a depression inside of 48hrs, more likely closer to 24. i'm betting this one will threaten the northeastern caribbean around wednesday/thursday.
the new emergent wave has some model support too. got a feeling that the july net tropical cyclone activity is going to be well above whatever the previous record was. as far as that seventeen named storms i took a stab at back in the fall.. jiminy christmas, i thought it possible, but i'm still slack-jawed at the way things are going so far this season.
HF 0637z10july