Storm history of Hurricane Wilma
Shortly after peaking in intensity, the coldest cloud tops surrounding the eye warmed a little bit and an outer eyewall began to form, meaning that an eyewall replacement cycle was happening. By late on October 19, the winds in Hurricane Wilma decreased to 160 mph (260 km/h) as the inner 5 mile (8 km) wide eye weakened and the wind field expanded. Early on October 20 the hurricane weakened to Category 4 status after the small, inner eye dissipated and the 45 mile wide outer eyewall became the new eye. At the time, the pressure measured 892 mbar (26.34 inHg), the lowest known pressure for a Category 4 hurricane, and Wilma retained the large eyewall as it turned northwestward. Originally, the hurricane was forecasted to re-intensify into a Category 5 hurricane, with one forecast predicting it to make landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula with winds of 165 mph (265 km/h), though Wilma remained a strong Category 4 hurricane as it tracked northwestward.