hang on kids!! jeanne has a bead drawn on the southeast coast. just as ivan got cranking while frances was still busy with florida and points north, jeanne is already threatening to be coming in sometime near the middle of next week (tue/wed). add to the mix another named system in karl, and yeah, there's a hell of a long post on the way.
ivan:
curving right, with more model tracks now more set on a sweeping anticyclonic loop across the interior southeast. still a solid rain shield northeast of the center, that will probably persist for a couple more days.. with the surface system likely to persist at least to monday. days of flooding on the way for the piedmont, cumberland plateau, and southern appalachians.
jeanne: the inner core has remained remarkably intact as it grazes along near the north coast of the dominican republic. may in fact be a minimal hurricane based upon structure. as it slowly trudges over the islands, extreme rainfall is the main story.. when it leaves late tomorrow the focus should shift to intensification. the storm is currently small and has a quicker spin-up/spin-down time.. could become a good bit stronger than forecast over the weekend. it should broaden a good bit over the open ocean as well. i'm fairly on with the nhc official track, though think it may terminally be to the left. not going to start specifying where i think the center will hit until it clears the island.. and starts hinting how much it will respond to the ivan weakness. going to throw in an unpleasant caveat that joe bastardi has already made mention of.. this should be a solid 2 or higher when it hits the u.s.
karl:
away east, progged unanimously to recurve. as with jeanne, think the intensity is conservative.. easily a major in the next two days. this should finally be the one.. a major hurricane in 2004 that doesn't affect the u.s. at some point in its life cycle.
others:
wave/surge line east of the lesser antilles (52w or so) has a minimal chance of organization.. not much convergence to go on right now.. upper conditions not bad though.
northern end of this wave axis associating with an upper trough/surface convergence and vorticity region in the central atlantic. as this nearly stationary TUTT type feature in the upper levels reorients over the weekend there's a minor chance something tries to develop in a diffluent zone, or with some of the low level vorticity present. minor chance.
wave near 20w following karl.. globals like it, but proximity to karl doesn't favor it. will watch, but expect little.
gulf/caribbean.. little activity in the lower BOC and sw caribbean associated with itcz/tropical wave action.. in the deadened state of the low level easterlies persistent features will have to be watched, but none appearing as so right now.
bottom line is that ivan is still a huge flooding threat (tornadoes are nothing to joke about either).. jeanne is a potentially significant threat to ga/sc/east coast of fl... karl is an open atlantic system, and nothing else is on the table at this moment.
decent chance we get the other two systems bill gray called for prior to september's close, but think the late season may truncate a bit (mjo favorable here, but the deadened west pacific foretells of a quieter early october.. more than likely).
HF 0350z17september