Interesting obs of the energy:
the main piece (at least it seems to me) is the first circle. The second one seems to come on a kick it enough to suppress it and keep it from cutting so much. Also still interested to see what the 3rd piece might do as it dives in and rounds the base of the trough.
RGEM sticking to its guns:
18z 12z
Meanwhile the 18z NAM is in another world:
MA folks seem to think that the NAM did take a step, prior to 48 hours, towards the rest of the models, so I'll hug that idea for now.
I think there's more wiggle room with this one. No clue how it turns out, but prefer to have the unknowns of those two N Stream vorts rushing in than the giant TPV gyre pulling everything N and W.
I'm really interested to see how the N stream shortwaves interact with this system. That TPV has blocked that kind of interaction off for our current system.