At this point, I do not believe we will be able to produce a confident forecast until 48 hours from now. The storm has made some significant wobbles, the most noticeable being the westward movement overnight. Now, it appears that Ivan has resumed a WNW motion. With such swinging, erratic movement the models cannot be relied upon at this time.

By looking at the water vapor imagery and upper level charts, I believe we can say with some confidence that Ivan is an eastern Gulf (Mobile east) storm. There is no way that Ivan will penetrate the trough in the western GOM, since it being re-inforced by new shortwaves. Model runs and official forecasts will change constantly, and will show a variety of scenarios for the east GOM. I don't give either of them much attention until 48 hours from now, when we will have a much better handle on the future track.

I think a major player in this forecast is an upper low that is retrograding westward toward the Bahamas now. Scott mentioned in his discussion how this has caused the ridge to nose down farther SW. I am having difficulty determining exactly how this will affect the steering pattern for Ivan, but it will be a major shaper of the ridge north of Ivan. The upper low will eventually weaken and we will have to see how the ridge responds to the low's influence over the next 48 hours.

God Bless,
Ronn