I was pleased to see the NHC forecast rapid intensification which they don't normally forecast...even if a TC is currently doing so and in a extremely favorable environment. What normally is forecast is steady to fast strengthening but a 95% of RI from SHIPS is impossible to ignore here.
I quickly looked at Jimena early yesterday morning and found it to be very organized and had a extremely tight circulation but I didn't think much of that because many systems over the last few years have displayed that but not gone off. This one did of course.
It was at 14:00 UTC that Hurricane Jimena looked the best with a clear pin-hole and I estimate it might have been at 115 knots and then quickly weakened to 85-90 knots again within a matter of hours. It seems like a lot of these cyclones that exhibit pin-hole eyes at the beginning of their maturity quickly lose the eye within hours and then continue where it left off before getting one. This is something I have always found strange about these types. It occurs frequently in the Epac especially.
Right now it's going into buzz saw mode just like what Hurricane Felix (2007) did after peaking that one Sunday evening. There is a warm spot on rainbow colour infrared imagery that can't be seen using the AVN. It seems to be getting larger and more symmetrical right now with the warm spot staying. They should send in recon right now...it's a possible threat to land you know!
I also wonder if this will finally be the one to achieve category 5 status in the Epac after a very long wait.I saw a poster post some visible images of Jimena yesterday near noon and some of them were around 14:00 UTC but just the AVN and the water vapor images were at 14:00 UTC. Has anyone saved the 14:00 UTC visible from the floater on the NHC's website? That one showed the most cleared out pinhole eye. It can't be an image from the NRL and such because it doesn't show up as well or it's not exactly 14:00 UTC, etc.
