>>a historical note: the atlantic has never in the satellite era gone all of June and JUly in the same year without a...

I think July is a tough month for Atlantic storms to form in general. You don't get the June or October hybrid type development and the wind flows are decidedly different. You can get lows that work their way to the surface, but that's another process. July (to me) is the transitional month. Water is heating, summer patterns are evolving, etc. I do believe that the system that hit Haiti in May (?) was clearly a tropical depression if not a tropical storm. As noted by Joe B. on his Long Ranger today, many of the objective EU met services have classified it as such (he throws that out there in case there are any "verification" issues with the NHC. I'm not calling him paranoid in this case because I agree with him).

As for the question about the accuweather forecast from last year, I don't have a clue. I don't usually go to their free site since I pay for AccuPro. Joe was pretty good last year in his initial landfall analysis then botched it when he overplayed Florida in his August update.

Bobbi,

It ain't like that down here. If it hasn't rained 40 out of the last 50 days I don't know what it's done. This is the most insane May/June period that I can remember here in SE LA. I know you guys haven't had much to look at in Dade County, but it's a different story in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. We're getting daily color from the radar sites so that helps to pass the time. Nonetheless, I'd expect we'll be tracking some waves this month if nothing else. What's been interesting so far is the E/W elongation of wave convection. I don't know what that means for the future, but I believe it shows a narrow path (with a southerly biased high thus far) for convection to travel across the Ocean.

Steve