I haven't had the time to really deep dive into a good explanation as to why the season has tremendously under-performed implied activity for the season-to-date, and long range forecasting is definitely not easy, nor my best capability, but I do give it a good bit of effort every season.

My take-away thus far to summarize: conditions provide the dice (probabilities/potential), but there are always other variables, if not outright chaos, that can roll a "10" out of five six-sided dice.

My best guess in our season contest was tempered by hard and fast data going back decades to suggest that this year would probably be busy, yet limited. However, as in my OP here, there were other things that began looking locked in to making casting aside such guardrails look like the better call. At the moment, that has looked foolhardy. At least for all the egg on my face, I'm in some pretty stellar company hah!

All that said, and wow, given the past few weeks, I might regret saying this, but it "does now look more likely than not" that the next couple of weeks have a window opening up for serious storms and possibly several names, before it might ease up again during the back half of September. We shall see.

One thing I have noticed is that the MDR, being far less conducive than expected during July and August, and certainly that blast of convection-killing Saharan Air had to have played a role, is that this allowed a region of the east pac that wasn't truly in a La Nina state, both in the ocean and the air, to go bonkers. Sending more shear (and less favorable conditions for development in the Atlantic) over this way. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. La Nina East Pac sets records. La Nina Atlantic looked like an El Nino was underway.