Also I figured out why the surface winds didn't change from 155mph from the older recon (from six hours previous).

Even though max flt lvl winds were 141kt in section F. (I think also this was from the NW quad), the notes in section P. showed max of 151kt in NE quad. That is the number they went by in the earlier recon, not the 141kt.

So change from 151 to 149 max flt lvl winds is not significant.

And even though the pressure dropped from 937 to 929 it still wasn't quite low as they look for to determine a Cat 5 (920).

I think I looked at it all day, and it looked so perfect I could not believe it was not yet a Cat 5. Still looks so awesome on the sat images.

Try a factor of 1.04 for computing the surface winds from the max flt lvl winds. Doesn't look like it would make such a difference, however it makes a little bit of difference. 149 * 1.04 = 155. However this factor doesn't always stay the same.