the official forecast is about the same as last time.. nhc crew thinks the long-awaited turn is starting, too. whereas wednesday night we were talking about this thing hitting near bluefields far to the south, tonight it's up north of puerto cabezas, almost on the honduras border. official turns it hard enough to keep it out of the gulf of honduras, which looks pretty much right. once the storm weakens enough the low level flow should continue to push it west/inland... very slowly. the huge pacific moisture surge associated with a strongly negative SOI that accompanied stan's crossing of the region at the beginning of the month is not there this time. pattern is positive soi and the trades should be strong enough to prevent quite the areal extent of flooding that stan managed.. but where the core moves over slowly there ought to be some considerable flooding. lots of deforested hillslopes in the region that like to come down on upland hamlets. we can only hope that the governments in the region are raising public awareness about the dangers they may be facing when the storm arrives.
secondary interests: the 91L feature had a widespread convective area this afternoon.. but that has decayed to more scattered stuff this evening. still a low-level gyre near 70-72w... which should pinwheel along the northeast flank of beta. too close and disorganized now to do any significant development for the next few days, but will be interesting if a discrete entity remains once beta is inland and decaying.
wave near 48w with a large associated turning and scattered convection is plowing westward towards the caribbean. may encounter a more favorable environment as it closes in. this feature will be with us into early next month, though no models show any significant activity with it.
nothing more beyond that except to mention that the favorable pattern in the caribbean should continue through the near future.
HF 0310z29october