Ike's 100 mph sustained might yet only be located in a few small portions, but these have not been at his center, or necessarily even near the center - additionally, Ike has had a very wide windfield. Ike's windfield is now larger than that of Hurricane Katrina's, with hurricane-force winds out to 125 or so miles from the center, and tropical storm force winds out to 275 miles from the center.

According to Dr. Lyons, Ike might be one of largest hurricanes ever tacked in the Gulf of Mexico. From just the looks of it, this certainly makes sense. And, per the experimental Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) based storm surge potential model developed by Dr. Mark Powell of HRD, Hurricane Ike may have hit numbers on that experimental scale suggesting potential for creating storm surge slightly higher than even that of historic hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.

Ike is a massive tropical cyclone that appears to also now be coming into a slightly more favorable environment for further strengthening, and official forecasts still call for Ike to make landfall as a gargantuan Category 3. Even if not making landfall at Cat 3, Ike's storm surge potential will continue to be easily one, and perhaps even two, full category/ies above whatever Saffir-Simpson category he ends up as at landfall.