totally different situation than we were looking at last night. we had all sorts of evidence.. appearance and numerous model runs.. backing td 9 becoming irene and taking one of those interesting tracks that could either recurve or continue west. now we're looking at what the nhc calls a 'disorganized system'. that's their generic phrase for anything that doesn't have a classic healthy appearance... in this case it means there's actually a well defined surface circulation.. not an elongated or multiple-type center... just kinda lost all its convection. it's still over 80-81F ssts and shouldn't track off of those... its ridging looks weaker but not gone by any means. subsidence in the area is about the only thing i can think of that caused 9L to lose its convection, but whatever the cause it has completely mixed up the forecast path and intensity.
9L ought to blow some more convection before long.. and keep its identity. as a shallower system it should track more westerly... but it should have been doing that already. there is an upper low to its nnw, but that shouldn't be affecting it much yet. nonetheless it has already taken an odd track and that may persist.. if it keeps doing what it's doing, it will move into the open atlantic and only show modest development if at all... as per the nhc official. the other school of thought i'll entertain is that the low level flow kicks in and pushes this sucker more westward, and that the ridge will bridge the weakness to the north. it would have to remain fairly weak for a couple of days for that to happen.
elsewhere harvey has decoupled and won't move much until it redevelops convection. the storm should eventually get carried out... but if it starts to trough out, that wake trough we were thinking about may be in 9L's way. not sold on that just yet.. some models (read cmc) have shown it trying to back up a little.
interesting activity along the northern gulf/east of florida. there's a weak ( i mean 1017mb weak) low near the miss delta... but some cyclonic curvature and building ridging aloft (max on the upper trough to the north is digging to the west and backing out). there's the mcc core from over florida last night which is drifting near fort pierce, and another trough max just ne of there... then another max east and south of there. with ridging building aloft and convergence at the surface, low pressure development is favored now. the one near the central gulf coast may have land to interfere with it.. but it's further along than anything east of florida. stuff worthy of the TWOs should start to happen in this area over the weekend. not sure what exactly, but any of the listed areas may become a focal point.
there's that other wave east of 9L, but models have largely backed away. it has to get further west to do anything in any case.
HF 1539z05august