The National Data Buoy Center of NOAA maintains a system of buoys and weather observation stations throughout the world. You can call up recent and historical weather observations on the internet.

Here is the link to weather buoy stations in the Western Gulf of Mexico, in the projected path of Hurricane Ike.

Click on a station number to see recent weather observations.

Station 42001 was apparently quite near the passage of the eye, around 7 pm CDT last night. I’ll never cease to be amazed by the intensity of these storms. Click on the links for graphs like these:

Shell’s Auger Platform recently experience winds of 110 mph.

There’s a platform webcam near the path of the storm, but the most recent images I’ve seen are from midday yesterday.