530PM Update
Well, I’m sticking my foot in my mouth from earlier today.  I thought Danny was trying to pull himself together, and I was wrong.  This afternoon we have seen no signs of further organization.  I’m beginning to wonder if the storm is getting ready to relocate its center.  The last few frames on the satellite just look funny to me.  I still think the system will begin to organize over the next day or so, and it still has the possibility of becoming a hurricane.  Guidance has shifted west today which lines up pretty good with the idea presented earlier in the week that New England could be a target.  Before we’re ready to make that call, the storm has to move in a discernable direction and needs to form a solid center.

We also have to look out past Danny and just southwest of the Cape Verde Islands.  We have a vigorous tropical wave rolling west bound which looks just as impressive on the satellite as Danny.  If I were to put a timeline down on this, as long as convective trends continue on the satellite, we will likely have Erika on Friday, Saturday at the latest.

930AM Update
Danny is definitely not your typical tropical storm when you look at it on the satellite imagery.  There are no thunderstorms on the western side of the storm as of 930am, no thunderstorms near the center, and intense thunderstorms well to the east.  It looks like our storm is still feeling some effects from the upper low that was keeping it from organizing over the past several days.  In the last few scans, it does appear that at least some cloud cover is beginning to develop to the west of the center as the upper low’s impacts lessen.  The storm has 60 mph winds as of now, and that is without much organization.  This does make me a little nervous considering most guidance suggests the storm will organize quickly beginning late Friday into Saturday and could be a hurricane as it approaches or passes just east of the northeastern US coast.

We have to keep an eye on Danny’s organization over the next 24 hours.  The longer the system stay unorganized, the more opportunity it has to continue moving on a trajectory toward the northwest.  Weaker, unorganized systems do not feel the effects of upper level steering currents like the taller more organized system do.  It does look like the storm should pass to our east and then north, but there are still uncertainties.  We need to keep an eye on it simply because it is so close to the US.

Meanwhile, another tropical wave off of the African coast is catching my eye this morning.  Most major global computer models try to develop this system as well by the first part of next week.