No doubt about it, Irene re-intensified a little bit throughout the day.

A couple of different factors at play today working together to make the increased organization possible: 1) Appreciably improved outflow 2) initial land interaction, resulting in banding right around the center curving back inwards, and 3) much of the circulation remaining over warm water.

The land interaction and warm water is diminishing tonight, and shear is forecast to increase. Nonetheless, Irene is going to take a pretty long time to spin down. Residents further north along the coast should not be fooled into any sort of sense of safety by her Category 1 status. Most Category 1 hurricanes never get anywhere close to as low as 950mb. Irene is a monster cyclone.