Hurricanes, tropical cyclones, whatever you want to call them, are incredibly complex and large events that span hundreds of miles across. Things are not uniform throughout the whole storm but we need to make generalizations about the entire storm so people can have an idea of what to expect. Here's part of the Saturday 21:00 EDT statement from the National Hurricane Center:


So, sustained winds of 80mph in a part of Irene determines the classification and it is still a Cat 1. The fact that hardly any of that faster, eastern part of Irene has actually passed over land means that any land wind readings are going to be much lower.

If you look at the storm track, Irene has spent most of its time to the east of land, so residents have been spared the brunt of Irene's fury for the most of its journey up the coast, regardless of whether it's a Cat 1 or 3 or whatever at any given time. We should be thankful that it has mostly tracked parallel to shore because that's probably why Irene seems somewhat of a dud so far compared to what many feared.

If Irene's track took it further to the west when it went over North Carolina (and many earlier projections did predict that), then places like Cape Hatterias might've observed hurricane strength winds as the eastern section of Irene passed over land.

It's not easy predicting the track or how strong a rapidly changing hurricane will be days in advance but it's the best we can do for now. I feel sympathy for these hurricane forecasters, emergency managers, and all these mayors and governors. Like our swine flu experience, the people charged with protecting our welfare are almost guaranteed a "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" experience regardless of what they do or how things actually turn out.