wanted to say thanks to nicaragua for giving us some ground truth reports from a part of the world not many of us are familiar with.
my take on things is fairly straightforward and i don't have much time tonight, but here goes.
felix keeps nudging southwestward as it goes inland and i suspect that some vestige of it will get onto the pacific side, rather than end up near the bay of campeche. unless something named crosses the nhc will probably rename it, but it will be felix either way. i'd say chances are good. bad side of that is, it's slowing down, and i'd expect the extreme rainfall potential especially in el salvador, extreme southeastern mexico, and southern guatemala to be very high.
99L is going to be gabrielle. it might have that tag right now if a plane were to recon it. i was also probably precocious in calling it a threat to the florida to hatteras area. the system has moved far enough east that a return to places like florida and georgia is unlikely, low probability for south carolina.. but of course that perennial favorite of north carolina is quite likely to get a visit. i would not be in the least surprised if gabrielle is there per recon tomorrow, and if it starts intensifying quite quickly late in the week. dependent on how quickly it mixes out the dry air that will plague it, there is a chance of a significant hurricane hitting north carolina up the coast from there later this week.. as the reasonable models are showing. of course this thing can always do the ophelia thing.. never respond to the ridging and just mill around offshore, or come at the coast and then veer away. just the same, there's a pretty good chance the carolinas will take a licking this weekend. stay tuned.
good ol' 98L is still there. it's not generating deep convection and has been lapped by the wave to the rear, but has actually stayed barely coherent and is perhaps finally going to get the push of the trades back. whether it starts trying to go or not, some of the models have the next emerging wave developing faster than it can. something ought to pop up out there in the next few days either way.
HF 0026z05september