The whole battle ground can be visualized on the water vapor loop. There are four features impacting where that radical turn will occur and as of right now I think NHC has it right. Feature 1 is the hurricane in the Bay of Campeche which is a block in the southern Gom. 2 is the tropical ridge ,3 is the upper low feature in the Carribean south of Cuba and four is the west to east flow over the peninsula around the periphery of the trough over the SE US. Those features impact each other north of Cuba and south of the Keys as can be scene in the motion of the clouds in that area. That point of contact yesterday was in the Bahamas and it has migrated back west a bit. With Katia hanging out in the GOM for a couple of more days this pattern likely won't change much until the weekend. There is no impediment to Irma continuing all the way to this point of conflict. I am going to focus on this pattern to see if it continues and its potential impact on the future track.