well it may be slowly turning nw now. hard to tell with the old inner eye decaying and the new broad eye defining itself. official now has it landfalling at cozumel island as a 5, crossing the cancun area, and swinging northeast from there to a sunday landfall in florida. a lot of the newer runs have it crossing even later. 12z gfs has the separate coastal storm off the mid atlantic drawing the 500mb trough further west over the northeast, with a future track out to sea. nogaps has something similar, so the consensus shift back to the right earlier this morning is a good thing. the threat to the northeast appears to be dwindling... they may have to contend with a coastal low, but that's nothing compared to what wilma would do to them.
no model support for it but there's actually a decent feature east of the windward islands that may be developing a surface low. no real model support (fair upper pattern for the next 2-3 days but no pressure falls shown), but if it keeps firing convection like that something may sneak up on the islands. not very probable. most of the models show this feature turning nw and curving out to sea ahead of wilma.
wave behind it will have an even stronger subtropical ridge with a more westward extent.. and it should be in the western caribbean in about a week with supportive conditions aloft and synoptically induced pressure falls from a strong high in place to the north. quite possible this feature will develop.
also of interest is how amplified the nao negative pattern is remaining in the extended period. the strong block persisting over northeast canada and greenland will eventually cause some more drastic arctic outbreaks as we get deeper into the fall.. based on the pattern a coastal storm with inland early snows and a hard freeze down to the gulf coast may be in order before veterans day. a tropical system timed correctly with this pattern could ride the coast, but with wilma's guidance shifting back offshore the sketchy likelihood of such a thing is well-illustrated.
HF 1724z20october