6-7-8 days out its all a guess. You're talking about weather that is currently over the Pacific coming into the US and exerting its influence, and we just don't have enough data from that part of the world (there's this little problem with the OCEAN in the way of any sort of real numbers for the surface level stuff!)

Yes, we have WV imagery and such, but that's it.

WIth that said I don't like the 97L GFDL solution one bit. If there's troughiness then it is very likely to go into the gulf instead of across straight west into MX, and that's not good. The issue of course is when does it turn and how sharply; that sort of pattern puts literally anywhere in the gulf potentually under the gun.

Let's hope the GFDL is wrong on this one......