harvey is down to its last hours, heading out.
irene is persistently moving wnw. the convection has reflared since around midnight, but as the shear is only slowly abating i doubt it will do more than minimal strengthening until later in the week. the later model runs are taking the system a bit further west than the last official track... to bermuda or so. the only model keeping irene on a threat track is the canadian. don't see that going down.
three other areas i'd mention right now worth watching.
persistent convection near the bahamas continues. the low level convergence point from the last couple of days near 26/72 has had the upper low swing right over it.... probably disrupted whatever was going on there. there's a newer convergence max near southeast florida. since it was related, the low/mid layer low that was on the northern gulf coast is having some of its vorticity drawn up towards the mid atlantic. some of the models show a potential hybrid feature offshore there in a couple of days. the entire area has an overall low potential, though.
behind irene is a rather low amplitude wave that had early model support... none really now (except for fsu mm5). there is a low shear zone east of the islands.. it should be into that in a couple of days. no dice until then. low potential for now.
now for the oddball. yesterday i watched a weak low drift north out of the itcz convection southwest of irene. it has been moving more or less due north along 49w, and seems to have slowed near 15/49 as of now. convection is firing near the center. it's just far enough away from irene to not be entrained (unless irene starts to deepen) and may fester down there if it can keep firing convection. if it persists it may interact with irene or cause something similar to the fujiwhara effect. low potential here as well.
the basin is getting close to reactivation. over the next week or two i'd expect to see a general increase in the vigor of tropical waves and a decrease in shear deep in the basin. by late this month we may have one of those storm parades that get lots of attention (but often result in a bunch of recurvatures).
HF 0555z08august