Is it just me, or is 961 mb a bit high for a mid cat 3? Perhaps I've just been softened down a bit in the past few years with extremely low pressure storms such as Wilma, Katrina, and Rita..

Im gonna say that Dean will reach borderline cat 5/perhaps 160 mph, if the track of the storm shifts a bit south, causing the centre to miss Jamaica.

Also, the GFDL model has Dean reaching 148kt/140kt intensity before predicted landfall west of New Orleans, let us hope that this will not be the case.

And a question: Do storms that have smaller hurricane-force wind areas tend to be stronger?