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I would hesitate to compare anything to Wilma, which was simply a freak of nature. Dean is at a different stage in its development. Wilma basically rode its initial rapid intensification phase all the way down to 882 mb and cat 5 status before it had to deal with any eyewall replacements. Dean's initial rapid intensification phase ended last night or early this morning and now it is trying to recover from a EWRC. The total kinetic energy of Dean has probably increased with the drop in pressure, but as Clark mentioned the pressure gradient (which drives the winds) near the center is flatter than usual because of the multiple eyewalls. As a result, there is a fairly large area being affected by cat 2-3 winds, rather than a small, focused area being affected by cat 4+ winds. If a single eyewall can become dominant, then the maximum wind speeds will almost certainly come up, even if the pressure does not drop any more. |