This goes to show why you can't always evacuate a city with confidence even for a storm so close to land (in the case that Ophelia was stronger, that is). The models have performed badly with Ophelia so far, though the magnitude of error isn't too large owing to the slow motion. Regardless, models are still quite spread, though this isn't as important as the fact that the storm continues to defy most model forecasts. As an interesting note, from my observations, the GFDL, which handled Katrina very well, is performing very poorly with Ophelia. While recent motion has been nearly stationary, it doesn't appear as though Ophelia will recurve into GA/SC as much as models forecasted just 24 hours ago. Now, most guidance brings the storm into eastern NC, though an equal number continue moving the storm northeastward and don't bring Ophelia onto land at all.
It appears that the heart of the dry air aloft is now west-southwest of Ophelia. Many upper-air soundings in throughout the southeastern US have shown extremely dry air in the mid and upper levels the past 2-3 days, which dewpoint depressions on the order of 40-50 degrees C in some locations. This has largely eroded most of the western semicircle of convection. The increased evaporational cooling from such dry air probably hasn't helped much either. Of course, the evident upwelling has resulted in considerably colder SSTs near Ophelia, which is also inhibiting any strengthening. LOL, so between the relatively cool SSTs and the continued dry air slamming into Ophelia, I can't imagine Ophelia will be much more Cat 1 at landfall.
EDIT: Forgot to mention moderate shear over the storm... LOL, between upwelling, dry air entrainment, and moderate shear, she's not in a pretty environment, that's for sure.
