first of all the nhc doesnt classify based on quickscats or there would have been several named tropical storms far out in the atlantic that didn't even get tropical depression classification

and then...in the Gulf...there was Earl..

Yes, the Gulf gets more respect than a storm racing off to the NE in the Bahamas in pre-season.

And...racing is the key word here too...the system is moving fast and has covered a lot of geography since we were watching it south of haiti ..

also both the system and the whole atmosphere is very dynamic and very fluid the last 24 hours

persistence of color and circulation is the key for the NHC as mentioned many times by Hope.. like to see it do the same thing for 24 hours before they jump on the bandwagon

they watch... they stare... they don't jump

so my question is not what does it look like at 5am... but what will it look like at 11 am when the visibles have been consistent for a while and they have had their breakfast and played with it a while

as for the deaths down there... thanks for the link, haven't heard much about it on the news

but figured they would have problems because it was my first thought that the main reason the NHC released that special statement a few days back was because they wanted to warn of such a scenario and did...

"AFFECTING PORTIONS OF
JAMAICA...EASTERN CUBA...HISPANIOLA...AND PUERTO RICO. HEAVY RAINS
OVER THESE AREAS ARE LIKELY TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT DAY OR
TWO...AND THESE RAINS COULD CAUSE LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND
MUD SLIDES. "