Brief Update On Tropical Storm Leslie

There is really no change to our forecast track on Tropical Storm Leslie.  Latest guidance pretty much supports our thinking track wise. The biggest question becomes Intensity.  We have been talking about how Leslie is quite large in size and when a tropical cyclone is so large in size it takes considerably longer for the center of circulation to contract and tighten up. And you can see from looking at the wide view of the water vapor that this continues to be the case..

However , another thing that you can tell by looking at this image is that Leslie continues to suffer from dry air being entrained into the center of the circulation. You can also see this when looking at the water vapor close up as well as the visible satellite image..

You can see that the system is very disorganized at the present time. The system should generally continue to track off to the north as it is moving along the western edge of the subtropical high pressure..

As you can see on the currents above you also can see a large trough over the eastern USA which this will be moving out into the Atlantic. As this moves off the eastern coast it will cause Leslie to speed up more and then eventually start to move towards the NE...

Now while presently there is only 5-10 knots of shear around the center ..the outer bands are in higher shear and as the shear tendency map shows shear is increasing to the north of the system... Combine this increasing shear along with the dry air still being entrained into the system and we think that the window becomes very small for Leslie to regain hurricane strength.. Another reason that we feel the window is small is that while the water temperatures are still warm enough to support strengthening ..the Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential is really lacking around 30 N and above..

Looking at the guidance tonight ..It seems like the GFS and GGEM are in agreement with the tracking of the system making landfall in New Foundland ..

And while we do not have the ECM in 6 hr increments but only 24 hr increments we can show you  hour 48 and it seems to pretty much be in agreement as well..

So in summary we feel that the atmosphere around Leslie still remains a bit to much on the unfriendly side for any real further strengthening. TCHP is low .. Shear is increasing north of the system and dry air is still effecting the system and the largeness of the system itself is not allowing the vorticities to become vertically stacked or aligned. 
Less environmental conditions change we do not think Leslie will regain hurricane strength. NHC has the latest pressure at 988 mbs which is up 3 mbs in pressure. ADT has this pressure significantly higher at 997.6 and visible and water vapor images are showing a system being effected by dry air and shear...