it's gotten closer to being something. i could see that it was turning some the other night.. now it's turning pretty good with some banding features and a decent vortex that is peeking between convective bursts. two things are going to work against it--the very dry mid-tropospheric layer that it will encounter for the next 2-3 days, and it's forward speed. the trades aren't exactly creeping along, and it seems like about half of the july depressions that form east of the islands hitch a ride on one and keep racing along until they eviscerate themselves on shear or just simply open up into waves again. it does look like it'll make depression status, but its long term prognosis is still a unfavorable unless it can make it to the islands this weekend at a passable forward speed (i.e. less than 18 knots or so). don't expect it could get there with a great deal of intensity, but a storm in the caribbean this weekend would be a whole different story. synoptic pattern would probably recurve it east of the u.s., but that's highly speculative (a lot has to happen just to get to that juncture).
HF 0211z04july