Good late afternoon everyone. Hurricaneville continues to keep an eye on Tropical Storm Danny as it begins to head to the North again. Danny had been stationary a few hours ago, but Hurricane Hunter aircraft has detected a northward motion in the system at 6 miles per hour. Danny is now located some 330 miles to the South of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, or about 810 miles South-Southwest of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Tropical Storm Watches remain in effect for the North Carolina coast from Cape Lookout to Duck including the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Maximum sustained winds remain at 40 miles per hour according to the latest reconnaissance.

Gusts are still in upwards of 50 miles per hour (45 knots) while the barometric pressure remains steady at 1007 millibars, or 29.74 inches of Hg. Upper level divergence has been increasing in the vicinity of Danny, which has increased the likelihood of strengthening over the next few hours before it heads into cooler waters, and a much more unfavorable environment at the upper levels. Looking at the satellite imagery over the past several hours, there has been some development of thunderstorms near the center. Recon aircraft noted a 33 knot wind in the Southeastern Quadrant of Danny, which helped keep it a tropical storm.

The models are more in agreement now with the track of the storm. The official NHC forecast calls for it to continue to accelerate rapidly to the north and northeast, but still approach the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Saturday morning and the Eastern end of Massachusetts by Saturday evening. Now, though, the intensity forecast calls for Danny to be extratropical by late Saturday night early Sunday morning. Stay tuned to Hurricaneville for the latest developments on Danny, which will be posted here in the blog.