Ah, grasshoppa, you have learn much...

The season from hell has given every resident of Florida pause and with good reason...it may not be over.

What I believe you are referring to is not that Tampa is under any additional "threats" per se, only that climatologically speaking...this time of the season poses a greater threat to the GOM than earlier in the season.

It has to do with the "home brew" storms that were alluded to earlier and which HanKFranK explained in nice detail. The Cape Verde (or CV) season is basically over, and that refers to the "long trackers" that begin their journey off the African coast (near the Cape Verde Islands) and eventually traverse the Atlantic, sometimes spinning the fish, sometimes threatening the Islands and Bermuda, and sometimes, like this year, making a US landfall. Well, that part of hurricane season is now over. That does not mean the hurricane season is over however.

Our threats now are primarily from storms which form or have their origins in the Caribbean of the GOM, the "home brew". Since any storm that forms in the GOM could make a "direct hit" on Tampa Bay (or anywhere in the basin), it might be considered to be under a higher threat than at the beginning of the season.

This has been one of the most extraordinary seasons ever, the first time in like 130 years a single state has been hit 4 times...it is possible that Florida could go 20 years without another direct hit...

Here's a link to Jim William's Hurricane City, with Tampa's tropical storm history...this should assuage your fears...

If I have not made myself clear or you still have questions, feel free, I'll try to get some real research, but I think I did OK for now.

Basically, the threat to Tampa now is the same as it would be in any given year...