Ike continues to look better and better on the latest IR satellite imagery this morning. The NOAA plane had an extrapolated pressure of 955 mb when it made a pass through the center at 13Z. Even though the pressures are down, we continue to wait for the winds to catch up. Ambient pressures throughout the outer portions of the storm are also rather low, therefore not creating a very tight pressure gradient as of yet, which maybe one of the reasons why we haven't see a substantial increase in the winds yet; however as convection continues to increase around the center of circulation, we should see the pressures rise and wind speeds in the outer bands come down and that will allow for the storm to really start to pick up steam.
It also looks like Ike will pass over some very warm loop currents in the southern gulf as he moves off to the northwest or west-northwest over the next 24 hours or so, which also favors significant strengthening.
It will be interesting to see what the winds are during the 10am update, although we might not really start to see Ike take off until this evening.
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