Short lived ridge break only

[John]

Believe me the weakening that the Models are picking up on is due to Henri and will be very short lived at best, unless Isabel starts hauling she is going to miss this weakness and will resume a heading West. This only supports what I have been saying for the last few days, Isabel is likely to head toward Central, FL rather than South Florida. Although I do like the GFDL Id put more stock in the ECMWF at this time.

[Rainband]

I hope not!!!! :o

[Aquawind]

I agree about the remenants of Henri flaring up and causing the model shift..it's only logical.. The thing that I also notice on WV is the ULL is no longer moving much. The ULL is not moving much and combined with developing surface low pressure to the NW of it..there is alot of low pressure to the NW to "open the door" towards a further north landfall..

ATLANTIC OCEAN...
THE MIDDLE TO UPPER LEVEL TROUGH IS AT THE U.S.A. EAST COAST...
AS THE LARGE-AREA SWIRL OF CYCLONIC FLOW AROUND THE 25N69W
MIDDLE TO UPPER LEVEL CYCLONIC CENTER SLOWLY MAKES ITS WAY
WESTWARD. THE EAST-WEST ORIENTED ANTICYCLONIC FLOW ON TOP OF
HURRICANE ISABEL IS JUST EAST OF THE 25N69W CYCLONIC FLOW.
A MIDDLE TO UPPER LEVEL TROUGH...GOING FROM A 27N29W MIDDLE TO
UPPER LEVEL CYCLONIC CIRCULATION CENTER TO 22N43W...IS THE NEXT
LARGE SCALE FEATURE.

Not moving much west to me.

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/HURRLOOPS/huwvloop.html

Timing is everything.. If Isabel slows down or stalls..maybe the ridge will build very strong and move the system back W or even WSW..Plenty of time yet.

[JetMaxx]

John, the only argument I have against a central Florida major landfalling hurricane is climatology.....it's never happened ("officially") into the Atlantic Coast of Florida in the Vero Beach to Melbourne/ Cocoa/ Daytona Beach area.

There was possibly one....an August 1880 hurricane that MAY have been a cat-3 when it struck the coast in the Cocoa Beach area moving WNW....Norton and Dunn both called it a "great hurricane", meaning sustained winds over 125 mph; but the recent re-evaluation of this hurricane by the NOAA HRD "HURDAT" project called it a 110 mph cat-2.

There was also a 110 mph/ 965 mb cat-2 hurricane that made landfall along that same coast (Vero Beach-Ft Pierce area) in 1871...only a week after a 955 mb cat-3 slammed into Palm Beach county.

We also had near-cat 3 hurricane Dora slam into St Augustine in September 1964 with 110 mph sustained winds and a pressure of 966 mb. Gusts reached 125 mph, and the storm surge reached 10-12' from Anastasia Island northward to Jacksonville Beach, and 10' at Fernandina Beach.

Of course, anything is possible with a powerful hurricane. There was never a cat-5 hurricane make landfall on the northern Gulf Coast either....at least until Camille (and none since).

There hasn't been a major landfalling hurricane along the Georgia Coast in over 100 years -- BUT the last one to occur was a monster cat-4 in October 1898 that produced a storm surge 19' high near Sapelo Light -- and left the coast in ruins from Fernandina Beach to north of Savannah Beach....why I urge everyone to take this monster hurricane seriously....everyone!