annular hurricane just means i has a large eye and complete, highly symmetrical cdo. sort of a 'death ring' cdo. it's the appearance some very intense hurricanes take on, usually after going through their pinhole-eye stage while intensifying rapidly. i wouldn't call felix 'annular' right now... maybe it's getting close, but the dimensions of the storm don't fit that particular meaning unless i'm mistaken.
i wonder if that plane was in real danger. they don't usually abort recon flights like that unless something was going bad wrong. reckon we'll have a lot of hair-raising details in the 11pm discussion.
HF 0202z03september