Regarding JB: yes I totally agree and in a normal world if someone were to wishcast so many storms one after the other into these potential disaster scenarios, you'd think it would hurt them. Because it doesn't, one can only assume that accuracy in reporting over time is not important to the general public, at least not as important as sensationalism. People seem to watch the news each day with no memory or concern about what was said yesterday.

OK I have a question about Irene. I realize that day-to-day intensity variations are one of the things that are hard to predict. I've been watching Irene the last couple days and every time she gets some good convection going everything looks improved for awhile and then it falls apart. Is the dry air contributing in a big way? Because I am not seeing the same effects as I saw before on mature hurricanes, where you could see the dry air making inroads between bands. In this case the blob of convection over the LLC seems round and complete, but then it never seems to turn into the cloud pattern you'd expect.