This season seems to be rather typical of for CV and should demonstrate for folks why it is so difficult to get a TC to trek the breadth of the Basin without that track and its intensity being adversely affected.

Firstly, this is a tough season so far for the Hurricane enthusiast - particularly those with the wanton affinity for actually being directly impacted by these monsters. Marrying one's entertainment if not joie de vivre needs with the phenomenon of the atmosphere is thus a hurtful relationship. Typically, seasons are abusive, this is normal.

Sufficed it is to say, Danielle seemed to cut straight through a ridge that in just about any other circumstance would have been mighty enough to keep the storm moving farther west. Such as it were, the opposing ridge nodes were just strong enough that 588dm heights and attending high pressure were not enough to prevent the storm moving right through. We have to remember that forecasting requires a huge degree of relativity type thinking. If the only available path, or that of "least resistance", requires positioning a system through the ridge like that it WILL go through that conduit. If said conduit were in fact the higher heights and pressure in the surrounding medium, the system would then resume a path elsewhere.

Earl was probably the most fantastically perfect engineered storm path, and intensity behavior, to inflict the most aggravation to the beleaguered storm enthusiasts. After experiencing that it almost becomes difficult to imagine a scenario where a Gabrielle, Hugo, Gloria, or 1938 Long Island Express could have ever taken place. So many factors must have to align just so wonderfully right that it becomes like a thing of exquisite art to do the deed. I did read one study that in just about all big system of that nature in the past, reanalysis showed there to be some form of an exit 200mb jet region NW-N of New England - perhaps that was not present with Earl. The truth is, that was the East Coast storm of this season thus far. Just because it did not actually directly strike (save NS), it just becomes our collective dumb luck that decimal points meant the difference. If we step back and look at the big picture, such a discrete margin for error could only have been guided by permutations that cannot be predicted. I other words, if I were a storm enthusiast I'd take an Earl set up over a Danielle any day.

Over all we are not done yet. We still have the last half of this month before the gauntlet of statistical climatology falls on the CV season and we start looking for a the last chapter of this season's story closer to home grown. One upshot observation in this is two fold that there are other TW of strength over Africa, and the SSTs were anomalously high going into this season and have [apparently] withstood the cooling effects of upwelling thus far. That only means that on a very basic level the prognosis is okay for future developments (notwithstanding TD12) just designated moments ago. Whether we have a protracted CV season or not, it also becomes very difficult as we near October for "long track" systems. The seasonal change starts to break down the subtropical ridge strengths and we end up with more trough incursions into lower latitudes. It is next to impossible to say just exactly how many more of these we will have to follow, but even as TD12 turns into a after though Basin event I would not be surprised given all if we have yet another or two to follow.

As to TD12 per se - I don't have a problem with the current guidance trends of earlier recurve. The synoptic evolution as modeled has a strong consensus around a weakness near the Azores extending far enough S/W to draw the system up.