StormPyrate wrote:wasnt the gfs the main reason nhc would not come off the Talahasse west track? that did not pan out for helene at all
Partly true, but let's also remember the ensemble mean for both the GFS and ECMWF were left of their respective operational/deterministic guidance. It was really the TVCN track (a consensus blend of multiple models with bias corrections) that the NHC doesn't deviate much from for the true reason that the track did not shift until 5PM the day of. Check out this graphic for 6 straight TVCN runs from the 24th-25th:

If you look at bias errors from Helene, you can see the NHC/official track is almost a mirror of the TVCN track (and one of the rare times where they underperformed compared to the global/deterministic model runs). It's another lesson in that forecasting shortwave cutoff lows is difficult:
