I can assure you that there is no nepotism involved with the current state meteorologist of Florida, Ben Nelson. For one, he's not related to anyone in the administration. He is young and while he has been through a few storms before, he's still learning on the job. The position has seen some turnover over the past few years, so he hasn't been in the position all that long. He has done a fine job in his time in the post and has worked his way up the ladder quickly through his work. One little hiccup isn't going to make a big difference -- and truthfully, a lot of people have slipped over the past few days and gotten the storm names mixed up.

Remember -- his job isn't so much to predict where storms are going as it is to repackage the information out there from the NHC & other official sources and make it easy for the public to understand. His work is one of the reasons why Florida is prepared for these storms and comes across that way to the rest of the nation as well.

Area in the SW Caribbean needs to be watched...it's not going to move much over the next few days, so whether or not it remains over water is going to be critical to its development. Ultimate path could take it inland over Central America to its demise or, in the long-term, across Cuba and through the Bahamas ahead of another trough of low pressure. Tangential threat to Florida could be there again, but I don't think it'll be the sort seen from Wilma.

Word of caution with using SSTs in the Gulf -- all of those SSTs are taken in the shallow near-coastal waters, particularly those north of Tampa in the shallow Apalachee Bay region. Waters out in the Gulf 10mi or more (except in Apalachee Bay) are still in the 80s and are much slower to respond to changes in the overall environment. While other conditions currently preclude any development in the Gulf, notably stable low levels and strong vertical wind shear, SSTs really aren't one of them. Sure, anything heading into the NE Gulf would likely weaken to landfall, but not dramatically so unless it was a major hurricane to begin with.

Another note of caution -- Wilma's probably more the exception than the rule when it comes to major hurricanes at such a high latitude. It set the record for the latest major hurricane to make a US landfall. ..it's highly, highly unlikely to see another major storm hit the US this season. All of the major storms that have affected northern latitudes have been in August and September, maybe early October -- but not late October. The environmental conditions heading into New England/the NE US or the Canadian Maritimes cannot support a cat 2/3 storm at this point in time. I should note that any storm of any intensity heading that way is going to be partially baroclinically driven and undergoing extratropical transition, creating a whole new set of concerns. Point being, it's not likely at any point during the season to see something that far north as anything more than a weak hurricane, yet alone in late October.