That's not quite right. They are doing 18z launches all over the SE US right now in anticipation of this storm, as they do with any threatening system (yes, they even did it with Tammy)...I was witness to one about 5hr ago now, and the 00z sounding is about to go up behind my shoulder now. All of that data was incorporated into the 18z initialization, I'm sure, along with all of the airplane reports (AIRREPs), surface observations, and remote sensing data that they obtain from the satellite-based sensing platforms.