Could you elaborate on cause and effect?

When I first came to this site, earlier this month, and Dennis was in the GOM, I remember asking about whether Dennis was going to move towards the warmer SSTs and wanted to know if the SSTs steered the storm. The response I got back from one of the moderators was that hurricanes are in general steered by the upper layer air circulation (with the central pressure of the hurricane having a relationship to the height of the air circulation that would be dominant), not by SSTs.

So it appears you are saying that water temperature is a major factor in steering hurricanes? That warmer SSTs in the NE would be a contributing factor to hurricanes being steered that way?

I had thought that was not the case, but that if a hurricane happened over warmer water, warmer SSTs would be simply one factor that could facilitate strengthening.