Derek Ortt wrote:117KT at flight level only supports 105KT at the surface
Floyd had a similar pressure during an EWRC
I suspect it's probably "only" 110-115kts at this time, accounting for the possibility that the highest winds weren't sampled. Data don't support a 130kt storm, that's for sure!
It's important to remember that intense hurricanes often have fluctuations in strength. This is what we are seeing now, and keeping Dean at 150mph is only doing so out of "psychological" or social response considerations, not scientific considerations. Sure, 930mb is a little low for a Cat 3 storm, but 945mb was high for a strong Cat 4 storm. The wind field is expanding, which means that the pressure gradient is weakening (same change in pressure, but spread out of a large area = weaker pressure gradient). This also makes Wilma all the more remarkable to have had a 882mb central pressure (probably lower) yet with hurricane-force winds only extending outward like 30 miles from the center. That's amazing, plain and simple.
The IR image continues to underwhelm me. The core is solid, and the eye is beautiful. However, the cloud tops certainly are not particularly cold. In fact, I'd consider them a little warm for a major hurricane, with less than 1/2 of the eyewall area tops colder than -60C. To strengthen to and maintain a Cat 5, I like to see a large area of < -70C, with the entire eye surrounded by at least -60C. The visible image improved today, with an expanding CDO through the morning and afternoon, and the symmetry in the IR data improved over yesterday. Those cloud top temperatures (which is a proxy for updraft intensity) aren't very impressive, for sure.