Foxfires wrote:...So is this thread going to be moved to the WPAC topic?
Not yet, since technically, it's still a SHEM invest. IMHO it's puzzling that it hasn't been re-designated yet. Not only has the "center" been north of the equator for over 24 hours, but, more importantly, the broad circulation has always been CCW (i.e. cyclonic in the NHEM).
This may join the likes of Agni as being tropical disturbance (DB)/Invest having a "wrong way" CCW circulation while centered just south of the equator. However, while ASCAT showed that Agni's LLC was definitely closed while south of the equator, 98S may or may not have satisfied both (or even one) of these two criterion. Since its broad circulation has been partially over Borneo since it was initialized, we'd need to see an overlay of a surface METAR plots (assuming they have any) with a corresponding ASCAT pass to get a better idea. Having looked at ASCAT passes from 3/4 through 3/6, my gut feeling is that the inital DB position of 0.2S eventually winds up being BT'd to the NHEM, but only by a couple tenths of a degree.
We may never know for sure, but we'll see how it turns out.