12z GFS has a major hurricane one week from today Southeast of Bermuda and heading West with ridging overhead. It needs to miss the weakness leftover behind Margot if it has a chance of making it West of Bermuda.
The outflow has really improved the last few hours and the eye appears to be clearing out some. The HAFS is predicting a more or less steady state system until Saturday morning when it starts to feel the cooler SST.
12z HWRF is similar to the globals with a likely landfall in Eastern Maine or Nova Scotia imminent. Tropical storm force winds make it to the Cape by Saturday afternoon.
Fairly strong consensus building for a landfall in down East Maine or Nova Scotia. Not really too concerned about New England. That area is used to seeing strong winds during winter storms.
12z HAFS brings Lee back up to Cat 5 intensity tomorrow, hitting ~155kts (175 MPH) at 03z Sunday before an ERC on Sunday/Monday which dramatically expands the wind field.
Current :
vs
The runs which hit land mostly have have the second trough lifting out and then the steering currents are left to the clockwise rotation around the high to the East.
This run would be a big hit in Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia.
The key is missing the first trough early next week. Most of the modeling that had an early recurve had Lee at least partially interacting with it. Also, the ridging over Eastern North America continues to trend stronger on the GFS.