Originally posted by Jeff Snyder+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeff Snyder)</div>
<!--QuoteBegin-Benjamin Sipprell
RECON ...
142 Knots! or 163 MPH
Cat 5 has been reached!
Central pressure of 923 mb
This at 17:02:40 or 1:02 ET
Stadium type eyewall ... interesting. Thoughts anyone?
Ben,
That's max FLIGHT-LEVEL winds, not surface winds. There's a rule-of-thumb 10% reduction to get to surface winds... So, 143kt max flight-level is about 130kt surface winds, which is still cat 4. The 923mb is also a little high for Cat 5.
That said, I can't see why we wouldn't have a cat 5 by later afternoon. Changes in wind speeds usually lag changes in central pressure, was has dropped
11mb in 90 minutes! The 11am central time recon had 134mb, while the 12:30pm central time recon has 123mb... That's insane! I'd find it statistically odd if the recon report just happens to occur at the minimum of central pressure during a rapid strengthening period, so I wouldn't be surprised to see <915mb by evening (or earlier). Rita is a relatively compact storm, so that pressure perturbation isn't spread over a very large area like it was with Katrina (which was Cat 5 with <905mb cp).[/b]