Looking at the VIS SAT I see that Irene is elongating east-west the last several hours. This might be due to her starting to bump into the ridge centered near Bermuda. I think the next 12-24 hours is going to tell us alot about her future movement. The GFS, which doesn't intialize the storm well, shows an ever expanding ridge from now out to 84 hours. Heights increase and the ridge expands westward with the axis from near Bermuda SW to coastal Georgia. If this verifies, it seems like Irene will be bumping into the Great Wall of China. I think from this point forward she will slow down and perhaps change direction to the west or W-NW? Who knows. Or perhaps come to a crawl and meander? I don't see it plowing thru the ridge like UKMET depicts. While the NHC discounts the GFS with Irene's track, I don't discount its building ridge. Makes me wonder where she'll go.

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/watl-vis-loop.html

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/model/displayMod.php?var=gfs_sfc_mslp&loop=1