The thing I like about JB, and that I find sort of refreshing, is that he's not afraid to call it like he sees it. He might be wrong (we all could be), but he'll go out on a limb and does his best to provide the data (sometimes too much) to back it up. Even as of this morning at 5am, one of our local "forecasters" basically said in about six seconds that Irene is set to recurve and won't pose a threat to land and that was that. All I've read from the people on here and JB is that this storm is unpredictable and bears watching (not panic, not wishcasting, not overblown projections - just watching).

I agree 100% that the NHC is the official source and I'm going to rely on them, but I hate when our local weather guys just state something as if it was fact. I'd hate to be them and have to turn around over the weekend and say, "Oops, guess where it's going now".