irene has to completely go away for it to be forgotten. noticed that the euro and gfs this morning have it missing the trough connection and heading into the western atlantic. sure enough bastardi thinks this is right and it's going to make it through. that's the thing with these storms that stay weak and keep working their way west.... they persist long enough and they'll end up finding a favorable environment. the shear pattern over irene has been slowly decreasing over the last few days and really shouldn't be enough to kill it. irene has to survive for a couple more days... then make it past the trough that is supposed to snag it near bermuda. i'm more doubtful than last night, but still think it's going to catch that trough in a couple of days, and then get left to meander in the central atlantic like franklin and harvey have recently.
harvey should be extratropical later today... possibly getting dropped by the westerlies and cut off west of the azores in a few days.
disturbance south of irene lost its convection overnight and is probably washed out. more convection/low level vorticity is working brewing up southwest of irene closer to the islands. enough of the models that were recurving irene were still showing wave energy getting west under the ridge... something brewed up down here could represent what the models were showing.
still a nagging home-brew option near the east coast, but the pattern is such that it would be a coast-runner out to sea now. joe b outlined his version of things in his TWO (mostly picking on the eta feature that's been shown working up the coastal plain during runs over the weekend).
wave behind irene not doing anything as of yet... mostly itcz confined and of low amplitude.
HF 1406z08august