Normally I don't do this, but Colleen put considerable time and energy into this post...

If anyone looked at the picture they just showed on the Weather Channel, it certainly looked to be going NORTH at THAT PRECISE MOMENT IN TIME.
People are allowed to say what they see, and I don't think that meto was "wishcasting" anything.
As far as the storm not turning, at this point, I think that the NHC is becoming more confident in it's track and I do not think that Ivan will make a hard right and turn into Tampa Bay. That being said, today is Tuesday, landfall is supposed to occur around Thursday. That's 2 days away. I believe with Frances 2 days out they were forecasting it to possibly move up the coast of the Carolinas, and even some people here were agreeing with that forecast. The bottom line is this: Frances turned, Charley turned. When did they turn? Charley turned about 4 hours before he was supposed to hit Tampa. Frances turned and kept everyone on their toes for about 12 hours. I don't think it was until she almost made landfall that they were able to nail the precise place. Two days out, a little shove to the north, maybe a little bit of of turn to the east and the forecast changes again for a whole lot of people. I'm not say this is going to happen, I'm saying it's POSSIBLE. Hopefully, the models have a good handle on this thing right now and we're only 2 days away so I don't see a huge track shift coming in the future.
Tarpon---this is kind of ironic, but you posted about Dennis Phillips and how irresponsible his comments were last night. I watched him and he said "IF THIS NORTHWARD MOVEMENT CONTINUES, AND IT COULD BE JUST A JOG, THEN I WOULD EXPECT TO SEE A CHANGE IN THE TRACK TO THE RIGHT". He was correct about the models not getting the new info because it had just started that trend. At 5:15pm, only two of the models had the new info and they DID swing it to the right. However, if you listened to him during the following hours, he corrected himself many times, as he was doing updates every 1/2 hour. I was watching the game and I saw him. At 12:something, he said it WAS JUST A JOG. I don't think he was being irresponsible. The reason I say it is ironic is because when I was on him about Frances, you were defending him as being one of the best out there. Go figure. Just like us, he saw the northward movement, too. Then it moved again to the NW.

I think all Floridians are a little uncomfortable and testy right now. We've been on STORM ALERT mode for over a month. Nerves are frayed, tempers are flaring and these things bring out the best and worst of us. We need to try and remember that when posting to one another. We're all in the same boat. I know I said a lot of prayers last night asking that this storm comes in well below a Cat 5 because after seeing two come directly over me, a Cat 1 isn't any fun either.

--------------------
Colleen A.

GO LIGHTNING!!!