Good morning: AgentB is correct and if you read the Melborne weather statement you see that analysis better than I can make it. The bet now is the ridge will retreat and the storm will turn quickly to the right nobody knows where...
actually there are four players in this mix: 1. Ivan and its intensity...the current situation is rearable...cause: internal disruption due to interaction with Hispanola in the north side of its circulation...that will slacken off as it moves further west...Ivan intensity as forecast is the best assumption.
2. the ULL now at about 30n/55w this has had an influence on the thrust of the ridge to the WSW over the last two days. This has not dived as far down to the sw or maiaintained its vigor as it looked like it would yesterday and if this continues to weaken it will allow the ridge to begin to relax.
3. the atl ridge: see the above for how the pros are forecasting that to play out.
4.The trough on the east coast...not as much of a player as first thought, IMO...the impulse coming across the Tenessee valley has weakened and will move more to the NE than SE

Thus the big player is the axis of the ridge...that is pretty clearly visible on the WV... the WV also shows the moisture path over Florida....the northern most of that is over the big bend area.

Clues for path determination will for me be the moisture streams in the high levels that proceed off the north coast of Cuba as Ivan approaches Cuba from the south. In the case of Charley the storm took a direct path following the flows that lead into Charlotte Harbor.
Even now I am beginning to see the projected future path of the hurricane as directly over or just to the right of the Isle of Youth in a NW direction into the W GOM and then NE back into the middle west coast of Florida. Since this is the WORST case for me personally, and I have already been within 25 miles of the centers of two of these in the last three weeks.. THIS IS NOT A WISHCAT...it is just what I see, unfortunately,

people in my area are taking this very seriously unprecedented boarding up and the like...it is af if an internal sense is triggering something...