Do you foresee this one being called a Cat 5 after the fact Like Andrew? The pressure and surge seems to support it.
The official criteria for the Saffir-Simpson categories are wind and wind only. For classifying a storm in a category, the surge height and pressure are irrelevant.
It's going to be a Cat 4 at initial landfall and a Cat 3 at the second LA/MS border landfall, and I don't see that changing.
The weakening at the end didn't reduce the surge...it was already built up.
What was the lowest pressure?
I don't know. All the sensors failed in the path, so it will be up to post storm analysis. Andrew was still strengthening as it hit FL, this was slowly weakening or at least holding its own. That makes a definate difference.