Hurricane Felix [Cat 3]
Position: 13.4 N/71.2 W [1PM CDT].
Movement: West Northwest [285°] near 18 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 125 mph [Cat 3].
Gusts: 150mph
Minimum central pressure: 964 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 15 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.
It currently 490 miles Southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.
It is now forecast that Felix will become a major Cat 4 hurricane before landfall on the Yucatan. It is still a very tight storm spinning up two levels in about 6 hours. With luck it will have an eyewall replacement cycle before landfall and lose some punch, but it will expand in size as that happens which is not good news for northern Honduras, as it will bring heavy rains and the flooding and landslides associated with the rainfall.
2 comments
They are reporting a stadium effect in the eye, which as I understand is characteristic of strong evolving Category 4/5 canes.
Those are the pictures of the tops of the clouds where in the center of the basically flat surface you have the bowl where the eye is located. The central pressure has been dropping rapidly and the outer storm isn’t encountering any friction from wind [shear] or land. The storm is symmetrical which makes it easier to spin up.
A new eyewall will start forming eventually at about twice the radius of the current one as a result of the central air column cooling and dropping after it reaches altitude.
It has low shear, warm water, and constant guidance, so there’s no reason for it not to get stronger.