Chantal has been tenacious given its forward speed, but it appears likely to me tonight that owing to pre-exisiting lower surface pressures in the southern Caribbean, Chantal has been robbed of sufficient pressure gradient, such that its internal vorticity gave up the ghost. It's my opinion that if there is a closed low associated with Chantal, it no longer exists at the surface, or is fleeting, at best.

If Chantal is indeed now an open wave, while NHC may continue advisories on "Chantal" because of its history of on again/off again, primarily open wave Chantal could kink all the forecasts calling for a tropical storm to run up the east coast of Florida. The possibility now increases that a potent wave sneaks across the Caribbean, perhaps to find a second life in the northwestern Carib, or even the GOM.