Hugh, this is exactly what I was talking about last night.

It appeared to me from both the WV and IR imagery that the storm would likely brush the very edge of Hispanola. That was a major departure from the original forecast track. In terms of miles, its not really big, but in terms of degrees of error 5-6 days out, its enormous!

Yesterday I "bought" the jet-induced ridge fracture, and its presence (and continued heatlh) was IMHO what put the LA/TX border (and a bit west to perhaps Galveston or even Corpus) to the panhandle under the gun. With the ridging eroding and a quite-heavy dig of the jet, you're going to get a recurve.

And now here we are with the scenario setting itself up. The model guidance on the SWWMD (http://www.sfwmd.gov/org/omd/ops/weather/plots/storm_05.gif) site is all clustered between the mid-keys (e.g. Marathon) and Appalachicola, with the left outlier being the AVNO.

The smart thing to do is the prog the center of the line right up where the center of the cone is, which is just north of Tampa. Yes, that's going to freak out plenty of people, and it either is or should, but the really bad news is that a shift just a tad east puts Key West in the maw of a really ugly situation Wednesday early morning - three days from now! As it stands the warning window for people living there is perilously tight now given what has to happen if it comes their way. The trend has been solidly eastward on the models for the last two days, and now they're starting to cluster up a bit.

On the WV you can see the trough pressing east. It does indeed look like its coming, driven by the jet, and in the last six hours or so is starting to accelerate a bit eastward, while actually digging a bit more. That's what the models are looking at.

The ULL is nearing the Belize border, and is off the table. Outflow channels look to be establishing themselves as was noted, and the ULL is going to provide nice ventilation for at least the next day, and perhaps furhter on.

I think the track shift is solid; it may come back west SOME, and I wouldn't call the western panhandle (which is where I am!) out of the woods by any means, but it is looking increasingly likely to be a west florida peninsula or big bend event, and quite possibly a really big one, given the gulf water temperatures.

Up near us, down to 50-60' water temps are well north of 80F. The thermocline a week ago while diving about 20nm offshore didn't show up until around 60-70', and even then, it was only 3 degrees or so. That's unusually deep around here and indicative of a lot of available heat.