Gary C: As for Arthur coming back towards land, well, the chances aren't that great for that. Less than 2% I'd say. It's been picked up by the trough and it will keep moving east to northeasterly until it dies.

It was intersting about what HankFrank posted last night about a storm forming in mid-July. He said the only other years something like this happened was in 1961 and 1985. We may be onto something here that could really un-lock the keys to this hurricane season. I'd like to say that 1961 is most likely not an analog for this year. Hurricane Anna developed on the 20th of July and went through the Caribbean. It also became a category three with winds in excess of 115MPh. The conditions have not been favorable this year in the Caribbean. That the early season conditions in the Caribbean were favorable, making it just the opposite of this year. 1961 was one of Gray's analogs in December, but it was taken off due to cooler than normal Atlanic SSTA's. There were SIX major hurricanes that year, and I think all of them were in the Atlantic. That most likely won't happen this year, thus, 1961 isn't a very good analog for this hurricane season. 1985, however, is a different story...

First of all, look at these archived SSTA maps for 1985.
July 1985:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/July.85.anomaly.gif
August 1985:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/August.85.anomaly.gif
September 1985:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/September.85.anomaly.gif

Notice how marginal the Atlantic SSTA's are? Looks fairly similar to this year, if not cooler. In fact, the GOMEX SSTA's have been much higher this year than in 1985. The Atlantic SSTA's have been about even with 1985's anomalies. Another issue is ENSO. First of all, 1985 had a weak La Nina, and this year will have a weak El Nino. Although this year's ENSO and 1985's ENSO are opposite, THE FACT STANDS THAT WEAK LA NINA'S AND WEAK EL NINO'S DON'T HAVE SIGINIFICANT EFFECT ON HURRICANE ACTIVITY!

Now lets go to the tracking maps:
1985 Hurricane Activity in the Atlantic:
http://www.weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1985/index.html

Notice the activity numbers:
11 named storms
7 hurricanes
3 intense hurricanes
This type of activity looks to be about what the Atlantic will see this year! And since we've had below normal SSTA's in the Atlantic this year, many have predicted below normal hurricane activity from the Cape Verde region. What was the hurricane activity like for the Cape Verde storms in 1985? Well, there was only ONE Cape Verde storm that year. It was Gloria, and it effected the East Coast as a category two hurricane. The rest of the activity was in the western Atlantic and GOMEX. Let's take a look at all of the U.S. hits that year:
Bob (Hurricane, cat. 1) Florida and South Carolina
Danny (Hurricane, cat. 1) Louisiana
Elena (Hurricane, cat. 3) effected entire eastern and northern GOMEX, made landfall in Louisiana/Mississippi
Glorida (Hurricane, cat. 4) effected most of mid-upper Atlantic coast as a cat. 2. It may have been a threat the southeast U.S. at one time. Can anybody confirm this?
Henri (TS) hit the northeast coast as a weakening TD.
Isabel (TS) brushed Florida/Georgia as a weakening TS/TD.
Juan (Hurricane, cat. 1) Made landfall in Louisiana as a cat. 1, then it went back out over water and made landfall again as a TS near Pensacola, Florida.
Kate (hurricane, cat. 3) made landfall near Appalachacola, Florida as a cat. 2 hurricane.

So, there were 11 storms that year. Here are the U.S. landfall percentages for 1985:
11 named storms (73% made landfall in the U.S.)
7 hurricanes (86% made landfall in the U.S.)
3 intense hurricanes (33% made a U.S. landfall)
So as you can see, the majority of 1985's storms made a U.S. landfall. Bastardi also said 1985 may be an analog to this year.

I would like to thank HankFrank for pointing this out last night.
There is also another impressive African wave this morning just emerging off of Africa.
Thoughts and comments needed.
Kevin