Thanks James, HF, and Phil for the birthday wishes -- nope, not 24 this time around HF, just 21.

To comment on a couple of things around...
* Danny -- the difference in the locations could well be explained by the QuikSCAT wind field from the storm or from weak vortices rotating around the system. It looked/looks impressive on satellite, but the QuikSCAT winds showed a somewhat weirdly elongated trough out of the northeast side of the main center. With weak vortices rotating around the storm from time to time, an objective analysis technique may well pick up on a smaller vortex if there doesn't appear to be a fully "closed" main center of circulation, accounting for the difference in position from the two agencies. At least that's my best guess.

* HF, the phase analyses all show a symmetric yet shallow warm-core structure with this storm. This is indicative of a hybrid system with subtropical characteristics. Satellite appearence isn't as impressive tonight as last night, but it's still pretty good. Scatterometer winds aren't very high with the system, but the wind profile is such that the strongest winds are both near the center as well as well-removed from the center -- a good 35kt from the center to locations a couple of hundred miles out, especially west and south. Again, this is indicative of a hybrid/subtropical structure. I think the NHC is missing this one, but it's understandable considering everything else that's gone on this year. Talking to one of the forecasters, they've got their plates full with a lot of stuff right now.

As I was telling Danny though, you could make the case for 4-5 subtropical storms this year alone. This one, Nicole, the one directly after it in the East Atlantic, the May Haiti storm, and the Mediterranean low just after the main influx of activity -- all have had similar structures for at least a day and were at least looked at by the NHC. Oh well -- it's picking nits at this point, but add in 4 subtropical storms and, if you really want to, a name for the storm that Lisa merged with and you get 5 extra storms...taking us to 19 on the year.

What a season it's been nonetheless, though.

As an aside or two -- in one of the other forums, I'm going to post a couple of pictures of the Escambia Bay Bridge that I took 2 weeks ago right after it re-opened in Pensacola, and I saw an interesting shirt today while eating lunch. On the front, it said "FLORIDA HURRICANE TOUR 2004" with a picture of Florida and the 4 major storms that went through, while on the back, like a concert listing, it had Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne alone with locations and dates. Got a kick out of it -- something that works now but wasn't so good near the time of the storm.

Alas, it's nice to have some quiet tropics for now.