Ike Pulling Together?

Recent radar and satellite imagery and recon data suggests that Hurricane Ike may slowly be pulling itself together and becoming better organized. Radar loops within the past hour show Ike's eye width has shrunk nearly 30 miles. Why is this important? Well, Ike's energy may be getting compressed together as it approaches the coast. This will cause the pressure gradient to increase and will in turn increase the wind speed. In fact, recon data shows that maximum sustained winds are now up to 110 mph. While I don't think Ike will deepen significantly before landfall, I wouldn't be surprised to see Ike make landfall with winds of 115-120 mph. The track of Ike looks like it will make landfall just west of Galveston Island early tomorrow morning. I'll have more updates tonight.


Greg Nordstrom will be providing brief updates from Galveston, TX this evening. You can check those updates by going to http://twitter.com/LDCT