Kudos, GFS. One of a few times this season that the new and improved version has edged out the Euro, with the latter now playing catch up and taking Nate, or "Nate," depending on organization, more up towards Louisiana instead of Florida - the result of the High to his northeast being stronger, with the non-tropical trof and closed surface low now in the northeastern Gulf tracking further west, and not developing or redeveloping east of Florida.

Track-wise, Nate, or "Nate," is now more certain, but intensity remains unusually uncertain, with the following factors, and others, making this part of the forecast decidedly unreliable.

* Tropical Cyclone Nate is embedded within a large Central American Gyre, or CAG (See main page), and this serves both to provide Nate with a moist cocoon, but also hold back the TC a bit, like a parent clutching its offspring too close, keeping it at home with younger siblings, not allowing it to fully stand on its own. This is readily apparent today with the explosion of deep convection to his southwest that is blowing off thunderstorm tops to the northeast and imparting modest southwesterly shear over the cyclone, which was not well handled by models (and other small scale features that are of too small a resolution for globals to generally nail down with much accuracy, if at all).

* Nate is a smaller TC, and these tend to be susceptible to outside forces in an outsized way, with much higher potential to rapidly strengthen, weaken, or even fall part, than average to large size TCs.

* Provided Nate does not fall apart over land (low, but non-zero chance), the cyclone is about to cross over some outrageously warm waters in places - potential fuel for any fire.

* However, Nate's steering currents are about to increase rapidly out of the south-southeast to southeast, limiting his time over these pockets of exceptionally warm waters - and, additionally, potentially even making it a challenge for the cyclone to remain closed off. It is thus possible that Nate makes landfall as a very, very strong wave (low, but non-zero chance), or have something of a lopsided nature.