How strong will Helene get?

[Beef Stew]

Mods, please create a poll with the following options:

Less than 100 mph
100-110 mph
115-125 mph
130- 140 mph
145-155mph
160-165 mph
Greater than 165 mph

Let's see what everyone's estimates are for Helene's peak winds and MSLP, and when they will occur... place your predictions below.

[Beef Stew]

Presently, I'm thinking a peak of approximately 145 mph and 933 mb, with landfall at around 125 mph and 940 mb in the St. Marks area following an EWRC.
As always- this is my personal opinion, and NOT a forecast.

[cycloneye]

Made the poll that will be open until thursday afternoon at 2:52 PM EDT, so better hurry and vote.

[tolakram]

145-155 is my best guess.

[CrazyC83]

150 mph / 931 mb is my guess.

[InfernoFlameCat]

My guess is 140 mph with a mslp of 931 mb.

[Pasmorade]

In my opinion, Helene would likely develop into a high-end Cat 4, with a small chance of scraping Cat 5.

[ljmac75]

I'll say a 140 mph peak, 125 mph landfall, and it will bring low-end category 3 winds into Georgia.

[FireRat]

160 - 165 MPH
This thing has monster potential.

[Category5Kaiju]

145 mph, giant Category 4 beast. Pressure of 935 mbar.

[ElectricStorm]

I'm still going with 110-120kts but since the categories cutoff in this poll is right in the middle of this range I went ahead and went with the higher one. But I'll be surprised if it gets much higher than 120kts considering the shallow pressure gradient and broad wind field. Pressure would have to absolutely bomb to get winds that high.

[Stormlover70]

125

[Hurricane2022]

125

Knots or MpH?

[kevin]

I'm assuming an average deepening rate of 2 - 2.5 mb/hr for the next 15-ish hours until landfall. This would result in a pressure of 927 - 934 mb, I'll split it down the middle and go with 931 mb. Helene's winds are lagging behind the pressure a bit so instead of the Dvorak-related intensity of 130 kt, I'll go with 931mb/120-125 kt. For the poll this is right between two options, so I decided to be bullish since you have to take a chance sometimes and voted for 145 - 155 mph.

[HurricaneEnzo]

115-125mph. I'm thinking if this thing was gonna bomb out to a Cat 4 it would be further along by now. Still looking a bit ragged and not a whole lot of improvement on IR. Slow steady strengthening to Cat 3 by landfall

As a reminder this is just my opinion I'm not a professional.

[Zarniwoop]

Wow, were most of us wrong.

[cycloneye]

This poll has closed for voting. Let's see how strong will Helene be at landfall.

[Teban54]

Wow, were most of us wrong.

Actually, no. The 11 out of 40 participants that chose 130-140 mph are operationally correct, while a case can still be argued that the 10 people who chose 145-155 may end up being correct if intensity is bumped in post-season analysis.

[Travorum]

140mph/938mb was both the peak and landfalling intensity operationally. Post-season review has potential evidence for a bump up in windspeed as a drone that NOAA released just prior to landfall measured 158mph 10-second wind (not sure what that reduces to in 1-minute sustained winds).

[Cyclenall]

I didn't know where to put this but Helene continues the trend of an major increase in landfalling CAT4+ hurricanes since 2017. Certainly for the US but basin-wide too. Even during the historic 2003-2005 period it was just Charley. Then before that it was Andrew!