The reconaissance aircraft this morning confirmed that Fabian’s top sustained wind speed is around 140 miles per hour, so it remains a Category 4 hurricane at this hour.

It is forecast to remain at roughly its present strength for the next few days. The Hurricane Center says: “The atmospheric and oceanic environment should remain favorable for the maintenance of a strong hurricane over the next couple of days…so changes in strength will probably be due to inner core processes such as eyewall replacements. At present there are no indications of an outer eyewall that would temporarily result in weakening.”

The latest computer model guidance seems even more “clustered” than yesterday around a hard right-hand turn, so the U.S. East Coast seems less and less at risk:

As the holiday weekend ends and the work week begins, I probably won’t be able to provide as many updates on Fabian, but you can always go to the National Hurricane Center homepage or the Weather Underground tropical section for the very latest.

UPDATE: Here is a graphic of the Hurricane Center’s official forecast. The black line is the actual forecast track; the white area is the “potential track area” — in other words, the margin of error. But as you can see, the actual track they are predicting would take the hurricane between North Carolina and Bermuda, and straight out to sea.