There is a lot going on in the tropics, and while little of it will have any immediate impact on the U.S., it's clearly a sign that we have a long way to go before we can begin to breathe that proverbial sigh of relief! There are four areas to look at, two in the middle of the Atlantic, and two more in the Gulf of Mexico. In no particular order:

1) The remains of Nana. Check out this loop: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/flt/t1/loop-vis.html Notice carefully the swirl of almost exclusively low-level clouds moving over 45 degrees west longitude and about 18.4 degrees north latitude. There is no deep convection at all with this, so there's a good reason why no more advisories are being issued on this feature. Another reason? It's more or less given up the ghost for the feature southeast of it. Which brings us to #2 ...

2) Same satellite picture, but there's clearly a low around 41 degrees west and 15.9 north, and there's more convection nearby, especially south and east of the center. The problem with this weak low in the short term is the shearing over the center, the same shearing that no doubt aided in the demise of Nana over the past 48 hours. And if you doubt that, look closely again at that very same satellite image. Do you see the high clouds moving east-northeast away from the center of circulation? I rest my case.

In both instances, the lows should gain latitude, and with an upper level-low dropping southward from off the Nova Scotia area, one would THINK these two lows are destined for the central Atlantic. That may well end up being the case in the long run, but as long as they remain shallow systems, they won't be steered as much by th jet stream winds, but rather by the low-level winds that will be more from the east and southeast. Therefore, I would not write off the Leeward Islands just yet this weekend.

3) Omar. This system has finally been upgraded as of 11 a.m. this morning, and while its movement is fairly erratic at the moment, the models suggest a gradual turn toward the northeast, tied to that very same upper-level low dropping southward through the western Atlantic and well off the East Coast. If that's the case, the areas under the greatest threat from Omar would be Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

4) That area in the northwestern Caribbean that has now been classified as TD #16. This feature is near the coast of Honduras, but looks very healthy, and it would not shock me at all if this gets upgraded to a tropical storm in relatively short order. While the official projection sends this more or less westward into Central America on a slow but steady pace, that very same slow plodding implies that there is plenty of room to wiggle. In other words, of all of these tropical features, this is the one that might make me a little nervous by the weekend!

More on the overall pattern and some tropical specifics tomorrow.

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