5PM Update
Hurricane Warnings are up for the Southeastern Bahama islands.

Frances models trended to the right earlier today but went back left later on. And so did the National Hurricane Center's forecast track. The current official track takes it onshore near the space coast midday Saturday. Models still may vary, and I still think we'll have a better idea by tomorrow night. But that's how things stand as of now.

A full update will come later this evening.

Original Update
Tropical Storm Gaston has reformed as it moved off the Virginia and the Delmarva peninsula last night, overland it dumped flooding rains over portions of the Carolinas and Virginia. It's not expected to affect land again.

Hermine has become Extratropical after touching the coast of Massachusetts. There is also a tropical wave far out in the eastern Atlantic that may spawn Tropical Depression 9 later in the week.

Everyone wants to know about now Category 4 again Frances.

Right now it is passing uncomfortably close to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Radar from San Juan) But it will stay north and only bring moderate winds approaching tropical storm strength to the most extreme northern islands.

But what are the model trends this morning? Back to the right a bit. Will the ridge break down enough for it to recurve to miss Florida or not? Or will it strengthen and push it through into the gulf? The middle ground would put it into Florida along where the Hurricane Center is predicting, but the error at that far out could allow for other scenarios. Not much new today on that front, but the trend to the right again is interesting.

It's still too early to say where it will affect, and how strong it may be when it gets there. If the National Hurricane Center track holds, it isn't good for Florida. But I think it will be adjusted some as the time goes along. We'll know more sometime late Wednesday I believe. Regardless, getting plans together along the coast isn't a bad idea.

Event RelatedLinks
Frances Models -- This image animated over time (new as of 3:30PM today)
All model "Spaghetti" for Frances from hurricanealley
The Caribbean Hurricane Page - updates from the islands
Caribbean Island Weather Reports
Nice color satellite image of Frances approach
High Speed Satellite Loops of Frances (Click floater)

General Links
Current Aircraft Recon Info

NRL Monterey Marine Meteorology Division Forecast Track of Active Systems (Good Forecast Track Graphic and Satellite Photos)

Check the Storm Forum from time to time for comments on any new developing system.

Follow worldwide SST evolution here:

Global SST Animation

NASA GHCC Interactive Satellite images at:

North Atlantic Visible (Daytime Only), Infrared, Water Vapor
LSU Sat images

Some forecast models:
NGM, AVN, MRF, ETA ECMWF
AVN, CMC, GFDL, JMA, NOGAPS, UKMET

DoD Weather Models (NOGAPS, AVN, MRF)

Multi-model plots from WREL

Other commentary at Independentwx.com, Robert Lightbown/Crown Weather Tropical Update Accuweather's Joe Bastardi (now subcriber only unfortunately), Hurricane Alley North Atlantic Page, Cyclomax (Rich B.), Hurricane City , mpittweather , WXRisk, Gary Gray's Millennium Weather, storm2k, Barometer Bob's Hurricane Hollow, Snonut,

Even more on the links page.