felix's inner core is looking better this evening. it might tip back up to 5 before going in, probably a tad north of puerto cabezas. would be kinda unprecedented to have two category 5 hurricanes hit within a few hundred miles of each other two weeks apart. looking possible tonight, but there's still a chance felix will even weaken a tad more. in any case it's quite a hurricane, and is going to bang the place up pretty good.
don't like the terminal track... like dean this thing keeps leaning west of guidance. might keep plowing west and reform in the pacific or something like that; wouldn't surprise me.
98L lost it's surface trades push, sort of in a large deformation zone ahead of the next oncoming wave. that wave has nothing in the way of convection to speak of, but it killed 98L deader than a hammer. happens sometimes, and in this case prevented a storm. we haven't had the sort of wave-series this year that spawns one storm after another.. large sal breakouts, easterly shear, and an inconsistent wave pattern have kept the mdr fairly quiet so far this season. that doesn't take away from the fact that the two that made it through have both bottom out as cat fives.
99L is my big worry. it has my near and dear chunk of coastline in mind, i fear. there's still a rush of subsidence that might squash it tomorrow, but if that doesn't then it's just stuck out there mid week over hot waters, with steadily improving synoptic conditions and the ridge rebuilding over it. 12z euro put it in about where i started thinking when i first saw the setup, though there's still a big spread from the models so far. still a lot of uncertainty, but if that sucker gets the ball rolling it can come up quick, and turn the later half of this week into a real bad one for people on the southeast coast. be vigilant.
HF 0214z04september