[dirtboy]

He’s forecasting GUSTS in excess of 140mph, not sustained. Irene’s gust are to 140 now as a 115 mph Cat 3.

[alancarp]

I have to respectfully disagree: here is an exact quote tweet from him this morning... with some explanatory edits required:

"Storm should deepen to near 925 mbby [sic] Sat am.DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THEM [Nat Hurr Center] CUTTING WIND TO 115, the prs [pressure] is down(drives me nuts when they do that)."

Now: you can believe him or not -- but that's not my point here. He is nonetheless forecasting a 925 mb hurricane, which is well into the Cat 4 range, so 140 sustained winds are consistent with that forecast... I believe that's what he's expecting.

One Clarification: My post #463 attributed 'Cat 4/5' to Joe based on this -- that's an error on my part as I forgot that Cat 5 begins at 156mph. My bad.