I've been a visitor on this site for 3 years now and this is by far the best site for discussion and learning about these marvels of nature.

That being said I thought I'd finally put in my 2 cents about Beta. (My first post so please don't be too harsh

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We will likely never know its intensity as it pushes onshore...we should have an idea of its minimum intensity but clearly do not have the technology even at that time to accurately predict the actual intensity without reconnaisance data. Even so I'd like your thoughts on the following without making this sound like a Wishcast:

What we know....

1) pressure near 979 mb at 4pm Saturday from recon reading and flight level winds not quite reading the estimated 90MPH advisory value.

2) Small eye feature developing according to recon at that time improving in structure over previous 12-24 hours.

What we can guess at...

1) A pinhole-type eye structure has finally formed and consolidated itself on IR and Dvorak imagery over the past 6 hours surrounded by -80 to -85C cloud tops. The few storms that form such a feature average between a 4-8 mb/hr drop in pressure until steady-state dynamics take over (Gilbert, Wilma). Beta probably has 6 more hours of significant/explosive deepening in store, at least until frictional effects take over, but with a very small radius of maximum wind, the core should not weaken until essentially onshore or unless it stalls.

2) Unlike the abovementioned monster storms that bottom out....Beta will unfortunately make landfall near or at its most intense wind/pressure.....I would make a comaprison to Iris, which also had a 5-6 mile eye prior to landfall in SW Belize with rapid intensification to Cat 4 status and a tiny inner core structure.

3) Winds may not catch up to pressure intially and up until now because of the rapid organization/deepening but I'm afraid it will by landfall...

4) The winds could be stronger than expected near the eye for its pressure due to the tighter than average pressure gradient for its pressure (again due to the tiny wind core)....this means that Cat 4 winds could be supported by pressures as "high" as 940-950 (Charlie and Iris were about 945mb at 145mph). Also, Wilma deepened by more than 80 mb in just 12 hours with a similar eye structure, albeit better outflow channels so who knows how strong Beta is or may get.

Best guess:

Without an anemometer and a barometer at the Nicaraguan coastline, if the strengthening trend continues, a rough estimate of intensity may be:

Current pressure/wind: 940-955mb (my guess is near 950 mb) with max wind to 110 knots (winds still catching up)

Landfall pressure/wind: 915-945mb (my guess is near 935 mb) with max wind to 130 knots (should be able to catch up with pressure drop by then)

Love to hear your thoughts....I'm just an analytical chemist using the lifehistory of storms over the past 23 years to generate an intensity forecast....it is truly a rare event in this day and age to NOT know such a realtime scenario with a landfalling major (assumed) hurricane in the Atlantic basin since no new recon missions will likely be scheduled for this storm ( no need for the 2pm recon on sunday since landfall will have occurred by then).

In any event my prayers will go out to the families affected by this tragedy. While land area affected won't obviously be as large as Mitch, the localized devastation could be easily as bad.