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It is, “merged eyewall replacement cycle” is what Melissa did yesterday. An MERC does not weaken a hurricane, it instead leads to rapid or explosive intensification. MERC are usually seen with these small, compact high-end canes.

Twitter BS

Some claimed it under went a "MERC" this morning where the two eyewalls merged but did not have the typical replacement. Not sure if thats a real thing or not

Not officially, but there is certainly a tangible difference between a hurricane with 160mph winds and one with 170/180mph winds.

How has Melissa avoided an ERC for like 3 days now? Someone explain that to me

There is no such thing as a “higher end” category 5. It can go to 1000 mph and still not be “higher end.”

Watching horrible commentary about a wobble being “The hurricane is now moving east.” People have no idea how hurricanes like this behave.

Just a reminder that late season storms can show colder cloud tops than normal especially at night compared to earlier season storms. Not that Melissa isn't an intense hurricane, which it is.

Weather models getting warmed up for winter I see Sent from my SM-X210 using Tapatalk

41-38 here. Mount Mitchell has been below freezing for the last few hours and I figure over 5500 in the roan it is as well.

Will we lose reggae?

Absolute buzz saw right now.

AF plane got an extrapolated sea-level pressure of 905.7 mb

-80c cloud tops have now completely wrapped around the entire CDO. It’s definitively a higher end Cat 5 at this point.

For reference, per Wiki:

Melissa looks like it strengthened a bit the last few hours. Incredible.

No hint of an ERC either

He is usually good. I think he got his arm cut bad during a cat-5 in Taiwan.

Thanks. 912–>910–>907 is pretty substantive.

Wobbling around now looks like a slight drift east so it's about to turn abruptly northward definitely has hit that brick wall coming in from the west. Certainly, does look the best it has so gotta be peaking as we speak. Western Jamaica is in real danger!

Anything close to that extrapolated minimum pressure on a dropsonde would be an impressive drop considering the relatively steady state pressures we’ve seen so far.

Looks like 907 from the sonde.

What's the difference between these and the extrapolated pressures? How do they derive the extrapolated pressures?

NOAA got a 912, 910 and a 907 on its three penetrations. Awaiting word from the AF plane on its second pass.

Hurricane Josh is in Jamaica shooting for another eyewall penetration.