Well you know how to cruise the web! That was very revealing. And, it shows that the things that are question marks to us today were settled a long time ago at NHC; they are being consistent with their internal standard.

I'm trying to work out how this is justified. How about this reasoning. Because the storm is shallow, as long as it it warm-core up to the heights of the cloud tops, then it does not matter if it is still cold-core, higher up, because it is embedded in the larger low? It is embedded in a three-dimensional sense. However that doesn't seem totally logical.

Someone just pointed out to me something that can be demonstrated most clearly by a quote from the most recent discussion:

...A SHALLOW HYBRID-TYPE TROPICAL CYCLONE LIKE EPSILON...

This is clearly IMHO code for subtropical cyclone. And I am ok with that as long as it works out everyone is on the same page.