Ioke: One for the record books

After a brief dip into Category 4 territory late yesterday, Hurricane Ioke is back to Category 5 intensity, with 160 mph sustained winds. The central pressure has also come down to 920 mb today, breaking Ioke's own previous record of 921 mb for a Central Pacific storm. In addition, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center believes that Ioke may be threatening the world-wide longevity record for a Category 4/5 storm. Ioke has now been Category 4 or 5 for the past 42 hours consecutively, and is forecast to remain at this strength for another 5 days. There is really no reason to doubt this forecast. There is a very favorable upper level environment in the region, really warm seas, and no land masses for thousands of miles. Ioke also has already set a type of artificial and informal (but still interesting) record for the GFDL computer model. This frame of the latest GFDL run predicts a central pressure of 874.6 mb (only 4.6 mb above the real life record of Super Typhoon Tip). Dr. Jeff Masters indicates that this is the lowest ever pressure that the GFDL model has ever produced.

UPDATE: The latest GFDL run now makes Ioke break Tip's record.