A quick follow-up example: National Hurricane Center update of Ida

I posted yesterday that I've noticed that this year the National Hurricane Center has seemed to be less focused on sticking to the 0300, 0900, 1500, or 2100 UTC advisory schedule in making significant changes to a tropical cyclone (i.e., upgrading, etc.) A classic example is the upgrade of Ida from depression strength to storm strength, which occurred this morning at 0629 UTC. According to NHC, "recently received ... satellite data indicate that Ida has regained TS strength." If satellite images come in every 30 minutes, I'm not sure what was different at 0615 than at 0545. While the time difference (about 3 hrs equally from the previous and succeeding advisory times... 0629 UTC is about 1/2 way between 0300 and 0900 UTC) in this case probably does justify a special update, this example still shows my point: NHC is making efforts to be more precise and/or timely, but at the expense of providing information during the "regularly-scheduled" advisories.

000
WTNT61 KNHC 070629
TCUAT1
TROPICAL STORM IDA TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL112009
130 AM EST SAT NOV 7 2009

...IDA REGAINS TROPICAL STORM STATUS...

RECENTLY RECEIVED GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITE IMAGERY INDICATES THAT IDA HAS REGAINED TROPICAL STORM STATUS WITH MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS OF NEAR 40 MPH...65 KM/HR.

FORECASTER BRENNAN