subtrop 22 is taking southeasterly shear... coincident with its direction of travel. the strong upper low to the south is shearing it from the east, in spite of its westward track... which suggests that it isn't being steered by/strongly associated with the upper trough anymore. up ahead on its track as it pulls away from the upper low, and ridging to the north controls its movement.. it should encounter modestly favorable conditions. ssts on its forecast track wouldn't support more than a tropical storm or weak hurricane under normal circumstances... the official looks about right there. that's assuming that the convective area to the east doesn't start competing with 22 and robbing all of its inflow... in which case the system would sputter westward and not really develop as per many of the models.
the upper low north of puerto rico has very strong drill-down potential, since it isn't moving quickly and already has turning at the surface.. and is over warm waters with a ridge to the north. don't be surprised if the upper low becomes the hurricane that several of the forecast models have originating around it.
well, i'll call it 96L... the powerful subtropical cyclone a few hundred miles west of morocco. the system has slowed down and is over fairly cool waters, so has probably peaked... as the environment around it is surely moderating and it doesn't have the same kind of differential to maintain the intensity it had. it may perk up a little as it gets drawn up into a baroclinic zone towards the british isles early next week... but i don't think its appearance will improve anymore so the nhc will probably not operationally classify it. at least they added it to the TWO. post analysis will be iffy as well, as it has existed beyond the periphery of the usual source region for tropical cyclones, and has obvious baroclinic origin. interesting system nonetheless.
not to forget 94L, but it is going to struggle. when it had a good vertical environment it sort of dawdled.. now it is under more substantial shear. there is enough upstream diffluence to support some convection as it continues wnw, but systems like this don't typically make it. it may end up entrained by the developing deep-layer complex ahead of it.
HF 1736z08october