While the frequency of tropical cyclones certainly drops deeper into the month of October, the season isn't over yet by a long shot as we near Halloween. Keep in mind, it was just seven years ago that the most intense storm on record in the Atlantic basin, Wilma, made landfall in southwest Florida. Tonight, a new system is brewing to our south, and will likely become our season's next named storm -- Sandy -- later this week.

Tonight, the system is being affected by a belt of strong wind shear over the Gulf and northern Caribbean, this is keeping the center of circulation separated from deep thunderstorm activity to its east. Later in the week though, as the center tries to relocate over the southwest Caribbean, it will be in an environment much more favorable for development and I expect a fairly quick intensifcation over some very warm water.

Through mid-week, strong high pressure will be lodged over the southeast and western Atlantic, this will keep the system drifting slowly west. The longer this system drifts west over the Caribbean, the better chance it would have of more directly affecting our weather in central Florida. Right now, most of our models forecast this ridge to break down mid-to-late week, as the strongest front of the season moves through the central United States. This will allow what will then be Sandy to move northward toward Cuba and the Florida peninsula. As you can see in the spaghetti plots from this afternoon, most of the models are tightly clustered through the Caribbean late this week -- a track that would bring central Florida high seas and gusty wind, but largely dry weather. Any adjustment to the west, though, would be a bigger issue for us.

With the system not yet officially developed, we have lots of time to watch it and the models will shift around quite a bit. At this point, just keep in the back of your mind that a tropical storm will likely be within shouting distance of central Florida by late this week and early this weekend. The season's not over yet!

Brian Monahan