ophelia isn't quite as strong as i'd guessed it would be, and isn't quite as far to the west either. shouldn't affect the idea of an anticyclonic loop off northeast florida over the weekend. i think it'll go further east than the official, but nothing nutty like the long eastward jaunt the gfs is advertising... it's over-recurvature bias has taken over again. i'm not very sure what will come back to the coast next week. it may still be an off-balance, modest tropical storm, or maybe it'll go jeanne on us under the ridge. the window for its return i'll leave between daytona and charleston.. the big empty quarter that strong hurricanes have generally avoided in the last century (although further back in time this was not the case).
don't see a whole lot going on elsewhere. nate and maria are going out.. nate is going wide of bermuda. wave in the central caribbean is now hard to identify, and shouldn't perk up for days. mess in the gulf is going to be onshore before it can do anything. the big/sharp upper trough that was near 50w has split, with an upper low moving westward near 55w. still pretty much guarantees it'll chop up waves coming in from the east... that big envelope wave near 40w looks to be first to go. the new wave off africa is low latitude and has little model support. lots of dry saharan air down there, keeping the deep tropics relatively stable for now. gfs shows it getting a little livelier late next week. will see.
HF 0456z08september