Please don't tell my editors I've posted this. I'm on vacation and if they figure it out, they'll take me for an obsessive compulsive and expect me to monitor the Blog and post from my beach chair.  Okay? Thanks.

Now. As for Chantal... Yes, I lost my bet. We have had our third named storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, and the first since June 2. But no, it is not a threat to anyone except shipping, and fish. And maybe Iceland by the weekend.

Chantal is a freak. Currently blowing with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, it formed Monday in the open Atlantic between Bermuda and Cape Cod. It's headed away from the U.S. coast and will very quickly become "extra-tropical" - meaning it will be absorbed into North Atlantic frontal systems and cease to be "tropical" in its mechanics. 

That said, here is the forecast storm track. Here is a satellite view. That's Chantal up there south of Nova Scotia. And here is the advisory.

Tropical storms are supposed to be forming in the much warmer waters of the eastern Altantic, or the Caribbean or even the Gulf of Mexico. Some even form in the western Atlantic, off the Bahamas, or Florida, where the surface water temperatures are 80 degrees or more. So wake me when a real storm pops up out there. Thanks. Where are my shades?