Maria not a big deal; Caribbean about to light up

Please note that these tidbits do NOT reflect the official forecasts of the National Hurricane Center, and should not be taken as such. While tropical cyclones exist in the Atlantic, the official NHC forecasts will be posted in the lower part of this blog. Please refer to those when making decisions, and heed the advisories and evacuation statements of your local National Weather Service Office.
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Tropical Storm Maria is now north of Puerto Rico and remains sheared due to a combination of fast trade winds and an upper low to her north. She will be recurving out west of Bermuda as expected and shouldn't be a big deal for anyone. She may make a run at hurricane status northeast of the Bahamas, but will probably get knocked down again when she moves over Katia's cold water wake southwest of Bermuda. Either way, she won't be a landfalling storm and will recurve out to sea similar to Katia.
The GFS shows development of a Cape Verde wave in 3-5 days, so we will be watching for that.
The next big worry though comes from the Caribbean in 8-12 days. As I have been talking about, the pattern supports mischief in the western Caribbean during the 3rd week of September, which we are now closing in on, next week. The guts of the reasoning for this idea haven't changed since I first started talking about it 9 days ago, and the root of this problem stems from the cold outbreak over the southern and eastern United States. Things will be turning very cold again in 3-4 days across the parts of the country that were hot all summer, and some records may be broken. All this means is that the air is getting denser and air pressures will be rising over areas that have had abnormally low pressures all summer. The cold water left by Irene, Katia, and Maria will also contribute to higher pressures over the western Atlantic. All of this will force air to converge over the Caribbean, supporting thunderstorm activity, ultimately culminating in the development of low pressure next week. I think we will get a storm out of this pattern.
The path of such a storm would be limited to either west into Central America, or north into the central-eastern gulf, Florida, or Bahamas areas. The Texas ridge is forecasted to be forced south into Mexico for a time, but this will still tend to block northwesterly movement towards the western gulf. We still have a long time to watch for development in the Caribbean, and we're likely still 8-10 days away from anything significant happening. It will be exciting for me to see if this actually verifies, but of course we will be hoping that we don't get a dangerous cyclone out of it.
We shall see what happens!
NHC Official Forecast for Tropical Storm Maria:

Tropical Storm Maria Model Track Forecasts:

Caribbean/East Pacific Visible/IR2 Satellite (click image for loop):

Central Atlantic Visible/IR2 Satellite (click image for loop):

Atlantic Tropical Surface Analysis:

200mb Vertical Velocity Potential (green areas represent upward motion associated with the MJO):