Well, my little engine that could is looking rather ragged ATTM. You can clearly see the convection firing off far in front of the wave. I'm not going to raise the white flag though, until this puppy reaches the Islands and encounters even more unfavorable conditions. Should it hold together until then, it may have a slim chance at further development. As Bobbi pointed out, it's pretty far south, so it's not encountering as much dust and dry air as if would if it were a few degrees further north.

It's so f---in' slow I guess we're all grasping at straws, hoping that each piece of convection will magically become Alex. We should know better. As a few have said, Alex will form when Alex will form, I'd just prefer that it's not August 14th. Starting to get more than a little frustrating.

Steve H., I think that your wave at about 48W is probably a goner, although as Spike would remind us, weather is unpredictable, so you never know...it needs to be watched.

Just a quick note about the "rogue" storm Joe B. has been pimping...the local mets up here are actually starting to pick up on it (maybe they learned how to read the models). JB thinks is going to explode, just off the coast, possibly as a lower than 1000 mb storm, while just about every model and met has predicted a storm further east. JB feels we'll have 40 mph+ gusts. I'm not so sure he'll get this one on the button, but at this point, everything is so dead, I'll root for the worst, even if it ruins the backend of the weekend. I am, however, pretty much guaranteed of a wet Sunday/Monday with the possibility of 1-3" (conservatively) or 6+" (as Joe feels a few areas will see).

Fortunately, unlike some areas in Jersey and Penna, we haven't had any flooding or saturated grounds/streams overflowing, etc., so that much rain won't be a problem. However, if it dumps that much on areas that flooded earlier this week, they could be in trouble.

Enough babbling for now. Keeping a lazy eye on the tropics, wishing it were mid-August out there...

LI Phil