99L can't seem to get it together. after the impressive, sort-of-banding convection it had on its eastern side today the stuff puffed out again (that's what, four times now?) and has since been replaced by a blow up near the not-so-tight center. will that puff finally get the ball rolling down the hill? who knows? it's going to move over the yucatan either late tomorrow or tomorrow night, and be inland for a day or two. then i guess it gets a turn with the gulf if there's anything left.
so much for wannabe stan--the real thing appears to be in td 19 out in the eastern atlantic. hard to tell much about that system at night as it's still relatively formless on IR, just a persistent spot of deep convection. nhc will probably wait for unequivocal proof before upgrading this system.... maybe a second t-2.5 or a really convincing scatterometer pass. sometime tomorrow this ought to happen, unless it continues to look like an overzealous thunderstorm on color IR.
the trough/low out in front of it strung from the itcz at 40w up to the nw actually has a decent blow-up on it tonight... as elongated as it is i doubt it could do much very fast. there's that upper low between the canaries and azores that seems to be tunneling to the surface, which may go tropical given a couple of days to rethink its purpose. then there's the mess in the western atlantic which is supposedly going to coalesce into a something meaningful near/east of the bahamas over the next day or three. the shortwave has already sped away and snipped off some disturbed weather west of bermuda... more is firing on the north side of the upper low just north of puerto rico. as the heights rise to the north the pressures should fall in this area and give us something.... maybe just an easterly wave mock-up in the subtropics or maybe something more nefarious. i'm of the latter school of thought, but will freely admit that more globals show nothing than something.
anyhow, things are less busy than i was thinking they'd be earlier in the week, but there is stuff going on. 99L can still develop.. and there's a fish spinner depression revving up out beyond where they normally develop this time of year.
starting on october. three normal names left, which in a typical year would be enough.
HF 0400z01october