The ambiguity with the naming convention continues. From this morning's NHC discussion, "THE SYSTEM LOOKS A LITTLE MORE TROPICAL ON SATELLITE," and speculation from Jeff Master's blog: "Epsilon is really a hybrid between a tropical storm and a regular extratropical storm, but its winds are nevertheless of tropical storm strength. Both Delta and Epsilon are more properly termed 'subtropical' storms, but I guess the Hurricane Center has stopped calling storm 'subtropical' to avoid confusion."

Admin Note: The gentleman is incorrect - NHC still uses the 'Subtropical' designation. A recent example is STD 22 - this year - in October.

Epsilon improved a little overnight. A 91H scan from early this morning showed convection curving around over 50% of the broad center, but Epsilon is still under a cyclonic flow in the upper atmosphere. It is hard for me to tell if what I am seeing on the visual is outflow. Convection remains organized within a fairly symmetric circular area fairly close to the center, so at this point Epsilon looks more tropical than Delta ever did, but it seems to be broadening rather than tightening up, and not so connected to the LLC, which can be seen through the large open center.

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Just read the 10am. Should have looked more carefully before posting. Can clearly see on both the visual and especially on the wv loop, dry air coming right into the center and then reducing the moisture in all of the convection. From the NHC discussion, "DRY MID-LEVEL AIR HAS ALSO BEEN NOTED WRAPPING INTO THE CENTER IN WATER VAPOR AND MICROWAVE SATELLITE IMAGERY."

It looks like there isn't much intensification in the near future: "GIVEN THAT EPSILON IS LOCATED OVER MARGINAL SSTS OF 23-24C AND THAT WESTERLY VERTICAL SHEAR IS EXPECTED TO INCREASE TO MORE THAN 30 KT BY 24 HOURS... ONLY SLIGHT INTENSIFICATION IS FORECAST BEFORE SLOW WEAKENING OCCURS. HOWEVER ...EPSILON IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN A SIGNIFICANT EXTRATROPICAL STORM SYSTEM AFTER 48 HOURS AS IT GETS A SHOT OF BAROCLINIC ENERGY FROM THE APPROACHING U.S. DEEP-LAYER TROUGH."