...In other words... hurricanes often produce a ring a few hundred naut miles from their cores which is marked by subsidence and a surface higher pressure reflection... The more intense the hurricane, the more prominent this type of "moating" becomes..

"Typhoon Tip" in the Pacific Ocean, when combinging all factors used to gauge hurricanes, ranks number 1 as the most intense tropical cyclone on record. On October 12, 1979 he (or she) had winds gusting as high as 190 mph and the central pressure came down to 870 mb! The size of the circulation around Typhoon Tip was approximately 1350 miles (2174 km) across. If placed over the continental U.S., it would almost cover the western half of the country. This is the most profound example I can think of to elucidate the nature of "creating own environment"... Not that Wilma will ever be a Typhoon Tip, but, sufficed to say, a storm of that magnitude is a demonstrative example of how so much momentum and physics starts to dictate its surroundings...

Beyond this example, which I'm sure you can find on line, the discussion gets really complex with physics to described why such mega amounts of ascending air tend to be counter-balanced by descending air, at scales larger then meso; which tend to mitigate outside influences and effectively protecting the core.