i still have twitter notifs for a friend who stayed there (she very much needs the private account options, for safety) and she RTs a lot of the stormchasers and modelers during the season, so I've seen them talking about helene-to-be since before there was a disturbance last week !

Yes! I think I first read about it last Wednesday or Thursday, and I was blown away that there wasn't even a storm yet but they could tell it was coming.

they kept repeating that a storm would develop in a certain range of days in the Caribbean, but they couldn't predict anything until then. at which point suddenly the spaghetti models all began to converge. then it was waiting for a center to form, to get a better track forecast. it's wild!