Thanks for the heads-up on conditions out there, Shawn. My parents picked the best time to take a trip to New Orleans...in the middle of a tropical storm! Lo and behold, they're on the 10th story of a hotel sound asleep. Not what I'd be doing, really, but hopefully things stay reasonable there.

Don't see any reason to go against the NHC, JK, or HF on any of the thinking with Dennis, however. I, too, am on the right side of the track guidance and very similar on intensity guidance. I'd trend a tad bit faster early on and a tad bit slower later on. Not sure I can see a major slowdown in the Gulf quite yet, though it's a scenario both to be afraid of and be planning for nonetheless. It's still a tricky forecast, with many players...Cindy's remnants, midlatitude "shortwaves" that come into the southeast, and even small-scale convective complexes that form almost nightly in the central Plains could all play a role in the long-term track of the storm.

(And, if anyone is really interested, I can go into detail about how a larger storm has a greater tendency to move further north...though really, you all probably don't want the full explanation!

)

Interesting sidenote: since 1900, we have had only 6 recorded major hurricanes in the Atlantic during the month of July, with only 2 in the satellite era: 1961's Anna and 1996's Bertha. Only one, one of two such storms in 1916, made landfall. All 5 seasons with majors in July were very active storms with a large number of U.S. landfalls. I can't take credit for that research -- one of the researchers at Colorado St., Mark DeMaria, came up with that -- but it's interesting to note nonetheless.