Ophelia Sideswipes the North Carolina Coast

since its inception on september 6th, ophelia has only managed to move about 500 linear miles. has to be one of the slowest storms i've ever seen. this morning it's further beaten down by shear and entraining some subsidence, but probably going to stabilize shortly as baroclinic energy sources start acting on it. i'm thinking that little lurch to the north this morning is the unsteady beginning of it's last run. not sure if it's going to reintensify in this manner... probably not. the shortwave over the ohio valley ought to grab it later today and accelerate it north-northeast and eventually northeast as it rounds to top of the ridge to the east (which has actually enhanced a little ahead of the shortwave). track should be close enough to the cape cod/nantucket area to give them a shot of wind/rain... and probably a more pronounced event in nova scotia. noticed that watches are up in canada... i guess they're finally letting the hurricane center do their warnings after juan got them in 2003.
95L is still getting a t 1.0 rating, but this should go higher later today as there's a rudimentary banding and a pretty solid convective mass persisting at the sw side of the system. it's likely to develop within the next 24 hrs based on appearance and model support... though the globals as a group have backed away from it just a little in terms of intensity. there's an inverted trough on the base of the ridge to the north creeping up on it and that should start inducing a more nw track as it nears the islands. this morning the center of the feature is around 11n51w, approximately. i'm not sure how close it will actually get as dynamic models take it into the islands and globals as a rule are taking it to the northeast. synoptic pattern days down the road should have it slow down north of the islands and wait on a shortwave near the weakness in the subtropical ridge forecast to persist there.
system ahead of it ne of puerto rico has quite a bit more convection this morning. the upper low shearing it is progressing slowly sw and should keep its development slow and unsteady. a number of global models are tracking it south of cuba right now, which looks spurious. any real system would likely sense the weakness forecast east of florida early next week before it fills.. then probably move west into the gulf, as earlier model runs were progging. as a group most globals are taking this feature into either the yucatan or mexican mainland in the extended period, but if the storm is of any significance it will be further north.
other asides... that little convective burst near 32/46 is on the same old frontal trough as the feature near puerto rico. if it persists it could become a quick flash high-latitude system, but unlikely at this point. some model support also for the wave east of 95L, which is more or less lost underneath an upper trough and in the active itcz, but may become more apparent again further west.
if the eastpac is any indicator, we could have quite a burst of activity. two hurricanes in that basin this morning, with two healthy invests behind them, all parading west. even if the atlantic becomes active, the upper high near the gulf coast and persistent weakness of the east coast should act to keep things mostly away from the u.s. mainland for the next week or so... unless the globals are really missing something.
HF 1411z16september

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