FLHurricane.com: Ophelia Sideswipes the North Carolina Coast

ophelia is on the way out, possibly to make room for two more systems. the storm should be approaching nova scotia and becoming extratropical in about 24 hours. it's going to cross some cooler waters on the way, but that should be offset by the baroclinic energy it should increasingly feed off of. probably move over or just east of NS with 50-60mph winds. nantucket may seen ts force winds, but i doubt the us mainland will.
95L could have been classified a depression today. the disturbed weather to the east is probably warping the overall cloud pattern and keeping the t-ratings down, but back when visibles were available you could see the low level circulation and what seems to be an embryonic cdo. now that the system is becoming defined at the surface the track should bend nw soon. globals may be overdoing the nnw track because they're mixing 95L up with the disturbed weather to the east, complements of a weakening inverted trough and oncoming wave. track should be over the central to northern lesser antilles, and the system may well be there late sunday-monday as a tropical storm. a lot of the globals aren't seeing it evolve realistically, and mid-level steering currents are weak, so this system may move nw very slowly for the next few days. it may get to hurricane status near or over the islands. gfs isn't seeing as much of a weakness in the western atlantic in the extended period, and is drawing it westward as the upper ridge over the gulf states amplifies and backs westward as well. this may act to draw 95L's future system further west in the long run, but it's still more likely to recurve.
96L has finally been dubbed. that strikes me as late, because it looked a good bit better earlier. there's a mid-level vortex and upper ridging building over the system, but the convection will have to come back closer to the surface trough. the system isn't developing that quickly and it may be sunday before it's classifiable.. or later. globals are really amplifying that upper high upstream next week, so the wsw movement in the gulf is looking more realistic. if it develops quicker early on it may get hung up on the east end of the ridge near the bahamas or florida. the canadian is probably overdoing it... but most of the other globals that only see a wave by monday are probably selling it short.
it's worth mentioning that several globals are making a new system east of 95L, taking it nw into the open atlantic. that's probably early model run bias... there may be something else that tries to develop out there next week.
HF 0051z17september

Edited by HanKFranK (Fri Sep 16 2005 08:57 PM)

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