Yeah, this is definitely much more like what you are more likely to see in some of the juicier West Pac tropical storms, to be sure. I've seen a few of the east pac systems flare this deep, but very infrequently.

Noel was doing this earlier this morning, before the LLC exited stage left. HERE are the AMSU Radial/Height cross section anomalies from around that time (15Z). The look of it compared to most of our other systems this year is just parabolic.

I would bet that rainfall rates within those deepest cores are running upwards of 4" to 10" per hour, and the water loading is probably creating a tropical cyclone's version of a very, very wet microburst, locally dragging down the strongest winds to the surface, and enhancing them on the way down. I'm wondering a little about hail production, as well.