If Helene is going to jump to the next level, it needs to be able to wrap the deep convection all the way around the center, which it is having trouble doing this morning.
The latest dropsonde pressure is still 981 mb, so it has plateaued for now. Radar and satellite show a bit of a dry slot has wrapped up the east and north sides of the core. I think at least a couple models hinted at this happening this morning.
The center took the expected right turn over the last few hours. It does not appear it will interact much with the tip of the Yucatan.
The latest extrap pressure is 981 mb.
The surface center is wobbling around a bit just south of the convection. Shear is certainly lower than this morning, but there is still enough to prevent the convection from wrapping over/around the center.
The newest recon pass actually found the center jogged a bit southwest since the last fix, so the surface center is not under that blob of convection, but just off the south edge.
The dropsonde says 990 mb with 17 kt wind.
It appears the second recon plane, which took off from Biloxi a couple hours ago, encountered a problem while flying through the Yucatan Channel, so they had to end the flight and turn back.
What's the deal with the GFS's depiction of Helene's vorticity, for the next two days, looking like a wobbly planet with a bunch of moons rotating around it? The other models all show one solid ball of vorticity.
Helene currently has an interesting presentation. It has a well-defined center. There is convection up-shear and down-shear, but nothing near the center.
The HAFS models are both now much weaker over the eastern gulf, likely mostly due to Helene being de-cored over the Yucatan. A few hours over land is not a big deal, but twelve certainly is.