hawkeye_wx

The globals are not buying any strengthening.

The 12z HWRF and HMON are dropping Eta in the 970s again. They've been going back and forth with the intensity.

Dry air entrainment really did a job on the convection.

UK and Euro are much weaker with Eta in the gulf than the GFS.

Latest GFS says Hurricane Eta meanders around the southeastern gulf for a week.

Eta's future continues to get more interesting. As the NHC says, models are going farther southwest after passing by Florida. The new GFS has this thing strengthening to 959 mb in the southeastern gulf.

Pressure is down to 991 mb.

A plane is flying into the storm now.

Pressure is 994 mb.

Latest Euro has Eta becoming a solid hurricane again in the central gulf, but then drifts north and collapses.

Appears to have completed its ERC just as it moves inland.

It appears to have turned west toward the coast. One would think pulling air off the land would keep it in check as it closes in.

924 mb per dropsonde..... Tidbits finally updated.

Tropical Tidbits recon data has not updated in nearly an hour.

Ok, they snuck an additional dropsonde report in between the eyewall sondes.

Ugh! They didn't even hit the eye with a dropsonde.

Rita sub-900mb.

Almost there....

It has been a long time since we've seen a sub-900mb Atlantic storm. I think this one will come up just short.

With the CDO becoming so thick and uniform, ideal for an outer band to form and contract, an eyewall replacement cycle can't be too far away.

I will go with 916 mb, 140 kts.

Yep, the satellite presentation is improving rapidly this evening from the high level it already was. Recon should be there in a couple hours.

Eta continues to strengthen. Even colder tops are uniformly wrapping around the warming eye. I'm not even sure what pressure recon is going to find. 930 something maybe?

Clearly at its peak right now. Also, the recon plane is back up in the air and headed south over the gulf.

Today's recon planes were not going to tell us much we don't already know. No lives in Nicaragua will be saved/lost because recon finds, or doesn't find, the exact pressure. It's just a major bummer, as weather/science geeks, we aren't getting the exact details for one of the two best storms of the year, especially one with a pinhole eye that makes it more difficult to guess the exact strength. This latest recon, which flew into the gulf but then turned around, would have been into the storm this evening during peak intensity.