Cosme continues to fire off pulsing deep convection in the SW quadrant. It's quite apparent that the easterly shear is trying to knock it down, and may yet suceed in doing just that over the next day or two.

NHC's 11pm HST discussion, highly paraphrased:

"COSME CONTINUES TO MAINTAIN DEEP CONVECTION IN THE SOUTHWESTERN QUADRANT OF ITS CIRCULATION AS IT MOVES OVER 25C WATERS ...

COSME IS MAINTAINING A RESPECTABLE AMOUNT OF CONVECTION GIVEN THE SST'S IT IS CURRENTLY TRAVERSING. EVEN COOLER WATERS LIE AHEAD ...HOWEVER... AND REACH A MINIMUM BEFORE THE SHEAR IS EXPECTED TO DIMINISH IN ABOUT 48 HOURS. AS A RESULT...THE OFFICIAL FORECAST CALLS FOR COSME TO WEAKEN TO A DEPRESSION BY THIS TIME TOMORROW.

But Cosme may still have 'a few tricks up her sleeve', so to speak:

"AFTER THAT...SST'S ALONG THE TRACK WILL BE INCREASING...AND THERE COULD BE SOME REGENERATION BY 72 HOURS. NONE OF THE EXPLICIT INTENSITY GUIDANCE...INCLUDING SHIPS...NOW SHOWS ANY DECAY AT THE END OF THE FORECAST PERIOD."

Just as I suspected in my last post, when NHC was ready to give up on Cosme, weaken it to a depression, and then dissipate it entirely. Now they are expressing a change in their thinking, due to the tenacious convective flareups.

In fact, NHC's intensity forecasts have been, for the most part, too conservative pretty much all along. Showing, again, that we don't always have the greatest handle on all the factors relating to intensity fluxuations.

As an aside, it should be noted that Cosme is about to cross over 140W, when NHC in Miami will issue their last advisory, and the CPHC (Central Pacific Hurricane Center), here in Honolulu, now located on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus, will take over forecast responsibilities, until the system dissipates or moves west of the dateline, 180W.

So, later today (Wednesday), please visit ...

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/

... for the latest advisories on Cosme as it traverses the Central Pacific Basin and nears the Hawaiian Islands.

Latest 12 hour IR loop:

http://weather.hawaii.edu/satellite/sata...amp;overlay=off

Any thoughts on all this? Please feel free to add to the thread with your ideas and observations!