When will we know what the future of Dennis holds?

[TreasureIslandFLGal]

From what I've gathered from reading the board, there are 2 main factors in determining the future path...

1) The weakness in the ridge left by Cindy. How much will she affect the ridge? When will we know what her impact will be?

2) The weakening that some feature up in New England may cause to the ridge. I don't understand this part much, but read it a few times yesterday/last night. What is this all about and when will we know its impact?

I would also like to add 2 other factors that I think are very important:

1) Dennis' strength. Storms create their own rules when they start getting really strong. Won't a stronger Dennis tend to move more northerly away from the equator sooner? -if no other factors were involved?

2) Dennis' speed. If it slows down, the synoptics that it did finally face once getting into the GOM could be much different if this thing slows way down. If the speed decreases to like 5-10mph, that would drastically throw off all the models. They have a hard time dealing with slow moving gulf storms. Plus, what would the synoptic pattern look like if Dennis were to arrive at a crucial direction point by say Sunday night instead of Saturday morning?

-just some ideas to chew on. Responses?

[Brent]

We ought to have a pretty good idea by Friday... NHC was very good with Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne inside of 48-72 hours.

[TreasureIslandFLGal]

Well, it looks like the very least we will get here in Western Florida is the rare chance to get some good waves!

But oh no! We have Red Tide going on real bad right now. no surfing

[dhweather]

If Dennis gets into the GOM, as predicted and forecast, then the NHC
will have a pretty good handle on where it will go.

[Steve Cosby]

We ought to have a pretty good idea by Friday... NHC was very good with Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne inside of 48-72 hours.

But not Charlie...

[Rainband]

We ought to have a pretty good idea by Friday... NHC was very good with Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne inside of 48-72 hours.

But not Charlie...

It was in the cone. Thats why they say don't focus on the line.

[Steve Cosby]

But not Charlie...
It was in the cone. Thats why they say don't focus on the line.

Yes, it was in the cone.

However, my understanding was the turn was not anticipated and even prior to landfall there was an indication that the turn would not happen.

[TreasureIslandFLGal]

Here in Tampa, right up until about 10:20am they were still saying it was coming for us. By 11am it started turning inland and became obvious it wasn't gonna get us, but even then they were saying Sarasota...until it literally went inland. They kept assuming that the NE motion was merely a jog. The only problem was the jog kept jogging! They knew it would eventually head NE, it just happened unexpectedly soon.