I'm not a big fan of cutting and pasting information, but this tidbit from the 11pm discussion bears watching, from Stewart:

"...THE OFFICIAL FORECAST TRACK REMAINS CLOSE TO THE PREVIOUS TRACK AND NEAR THE NHC MODEL CONSENSUS. HOWEVER...WITH SUCH A LARGE TROUGH FORCAST TO DEVELOP OVER THE CENTRAL U.S...IT WOULD NOT SURPRISE ME IF SUBSEQUENT MODEL RUNS DO NOT BEGIN TRENDING A LITTLE MORE WESTWARD. THE NEW 00Z MODEL RUNS SHOULD BE INTERESTING."

Here's where this thinking comes in...

1) There is already a sharp trough evident in water vapor imagery across the east-central U.S., and there is energy riding over the ridge in the western U.S. to reinforce this. However, with the strength of the subtropical ridge, it is likely only to amplify the trough and not move it eastward.

2) With a deepening trough in the central U.S., there has to be a corresponding strengthening on a ridge somewhere to compensate. This is likely to be in conjunction with the Atlantic ridge. Add in the gain in intensity you sometimes see of the ridge as a tropical cyclone recurves around it's base - here, Gaston - and this is very plausible.

3) The 00z model runs that arrive about 2am (& later) will include yet another series of Gulfstream jet data from earlier this afternoon. Any and all additional data is going to influence the track forecasts in a positive way, and with a better sample of the environment, the aformentioned shift in the track may well be verified.

I can only hope that the NWS is having all eastern and central U.S. NWS offices launch 6hrly baloons for upper-air observations, as there is a noted increase in forecast ability with increased upper-air data across the United States. If we did thus on a regular basis again, our forecasts would be twice as good as they are now (and that's just midlatitude weather I'm speaking of)! But, I haven't heard of any plans to that effect yet.

It sure will be interesting to see the 00z model runs, but again - it's not a point storm, it's a big storm.