Phil -- since there have been good records (1880s or so), we haven't had a system form more than about 10 deg east of the islands in June. Even if you cut it back to just the satellite era, it's still pretty darn unlikely to see something that far out. If - IF - anything were to try to get going, it'd have to stay at a pretty low latitude: upper level easterlies encroach down to about 15 N. Shear is pretty strong down to 10 N, too. Waters are warmer than normal for this time of year, but still not really supportive until you get to about 40 W. It's an oddity, especially with such a nice convective burst, but not really anything to be concerned about.
The W. Caribbean Sea storm doesn't have a surface signature yet, after all. A QuikSCAT pass from about 8p ET tonight didn't really even show a low-level trough. Winds are kicking in the convective areas, even up to 40kt in some cases (non-rain flagged), but no hint of anything at low levels. If it develops, it'll meet the expanding weakness in the ridge and move off towards the north and east; if not, whatever remains may head up trudging west, but since this convection is at least partially upper-level induced, there may not be a lot left to go west. We'll see, but anything that threatens the eastern Gulf in the next week is more likely to be a separate feature than anything else.
Other than that, not much to touch upon. Like HF said, we'll know more once we get some vis images in the morning & recon out there in the afternoon. To follow up on the post about these things forming more often that not in the Caribbean Sea: these sorts of convective clusters can tend to spin-up low level circulations -- it follows naturally out of meteorological principles -- but it doesn't always happen. The longer the convection persists, the better the chance of something spinning up. After that, it's up to the environment to see if the circulation can get going...and really, right now, it's not all that condusive. I tend to agree with HF's explanation on the situation, though, so I'll leave it to his discussion for more.
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