wow.. just about all of the globals have wilma doing a cyclonic loop over the ne yucatan. have to admit that it wouldn't be unprecedented... isidore back in 2002 swung onshore in a weak steering environment due to the asymmetry in its windfield caused by proximity to the peninsula. if that happens it's major bad juju for cancun and cozumel.. they'll get hammered all weekend by hurricane winds and rain. better in the longrun for florida because once these large systems get over land and their inner cores spin down/entrain a bunch of dry air, they don't tend to spin back up. you just end up with a large but mild windstorm. even the odd model that doesn't swing the hurricane onshore (ukmet for instance) has it slowing to a crawl near the coastline. that's probably enough to spin it down another category. either way wilma probably won't enter the gulf any stronger than a 3. all the models have pretty much slowed down but i don't quite see the extremely slow prog working out.. still think it can get to florida on sunday. the phasing solution i'm least certain about, but not backing away on that either.
there have been a few eyewall changes noted tonight... the definition and temperature gradient notably. what i see as important in the short term is the contraction. smaller eye=faster revolutions, it's as simple as that. with the pressure stable around 930mb a few miles off the diameter will have a wind-increasing effect, i'd expect by morning. the hurricane may creep back to 5 simply by inner core changes, though i doubt the pressure will be falling much. probably just stay steady or slowly weaken while offshore... spin down more quickly if it moves ashore.
anyhow, time to get some shuteye.
HF 0715z21october