So I'm up early this morning due to the construction workers starting at a god-aweful hour this morning. Da de da, reading the early morning news. Da de da....oh whats this. Hurricane Wilma has strengthened...wait a second....

SWEET JESUS CHRIST! IT'S AT 884MB!!!!

It's dropped 86MB in one day! What the hell?! I wasn't even aware that was theoretically possible!
884mb is stronger than Andrew! Stronger than Katrina! From tropical storm to the strongest storm in recorded history in 24 hours! (In the Atlantic- this isn't counting the Super Typhoon Tip for the Pacific).

Even a hurricane watcher like me is confused. WTF is going on?!
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From the Nat'nl Hurri Center:

HURRICANE WILMA DISCUSSION NUMBER 16 CORRECTED
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
5 AM EDT WED OCT 19 2005

...TO USE THE PROPER WORD...RELAYED...

IN ADDITION TO THE SPECTACULAR CLOUD PATTERN OBSERVED ON SATELLITE
...AN AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE PLANE MEASURED 168 KNOTS AT 700 MB
AND ESTIMATED A MINIMUM PRESSURE OF 884 MB EXTRAPOLATED FROM 700MB.
UNOFFICIALLY...THE METEOROLOGIST ON BOARD THE PLANE RELAYED AN
EXTRAPOLATED 881 MB PRESSURE AND MEASURED 884 MB WITH A DROPSONDE.
THIS IS ALL IN ASSOCIATION WITH A VERY SMALL EYE THAT HAS BEEN
OSCILLATING BETWEEN 2 AND 4 N MI DURING EYE PENETRATIONS. THIS IS
PROBABLY THE LOWEST MINIMUM PRESSURE EVER OBSERVED IN THE ATLANTIC
BASIN AND IS FOLLOWED BY THE 888 MB MINIMUM PRESSURE ASSOCIATED
WITH HURRICANE GILBERT IN 1988.

From the Weather Channel:

Hurricane Hunters early this morning recorded a pressure of 884 mb, the lowest recorded storm in the Atlantic Basin. This represents more than a 86 mb drop in just more than 9 hours! This appears to be one of the fastest pressure drops on record. Winds are now up to 175 mph making this a Category 5 hurricane. Hurricane watches have been extended up to parts of Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Hurricane Wilma is moving west-northwestward at 8 mph and this general motion is expected to continue for the next 24 hours. Heavy rain is likely in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, northern Honduras and southern Cuba. Wilma may try to slip through the Yucatan Channel into the extreme southern Gulf of Mexico and turn to the east or northeast. Residents of the southern Florida, including the Keys, should begin thinking about the possibility of a hurricane strike sometime this coming weekend.
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Links to the two nearest NDCB Buoys in the Gulf: 42057 & 42056

Just to put this into perspective....the hurricane hunter recon plane ascended to a higher altitude (700mb) when it ran through the storm because their normal altitude was kicking their ass too much and they were worried about plane saftey. Don't see that too often. Gee, I wonder where Jim Cantore will be this weekend?

175 MPH winds, 884 mb pressure. The 8AM advisory Tuesday morning (less than 24 hours ago at the time of this posting) had Tropical Storm Wilma with 70 MPH winds. Holy crap. Anyone even near the coast of Florida should make preparations to get out now!

Further perspective: The friggin' eye is TWO MILES WIDE (Hurricane Eyes should be 10-20 miles wide). That's just ridiculous. This is less of a hurricane than a large tornado. This is a more concentrated, violent mass of power than even Andrew. It won't hit FL with this kind of power, but right now, the winds are just about hard enough to rip heads clean off, and they're rotating around an area the size of a 10,000-person town. Every 20 seconds. One forecaster at NHC said that this Hurricane falls under the Goldilocks principal right now...everything is JUST right. In other words, it has a Pinhole eye. What is a Pinhole eye you ask? Well, it means stronger winds, for one thing. It also means that it's harder to make satellite estimates of strength, because the eye is smaller than the satellite can resolve. More than you ever needed to know about pinhole eyes and the goldilocks principle. Basically, the storm needs to 'conserve' energy, so the eye gets smaller and the winds can spin faster.