In intense tropical cyclones, sea level pressures at the center are 50–100 hPa lower than outside the vortex, but only 10–30 hPa of the total pressure fall occurs inside the eye between the eyewall and the center. Warming by dry subsidence accounts for this fraction of the total hydrostatic pressure fall. Convection in the eyewall causes the warming by doing work on the eye to force the thermally indirect subsidence. Soundings inside hurricane eyes show warm and dry air aloft, separated by an inversion from cloudy air below. Dewpoint depressions at the inversion level, typically 850–500 hPa, are 10–30 K rather than the ∼100 K that would occur if the air descended from tropopause level without dilution by the surrounding cloud. The observed temperature and dewpoint distribution above the inversion can, however, be derived by ∼100 hPa of undilute dry subsidence from an initial sounding that is somewhat more stable than a moist adiabat. It is hypothesized that the air above the inversion has remaine... Abstract In intense tropical cyclones, sea level pressures at the center are 50–100 hPa lower than outside the vortex, but only 10–30 hPa of the total pressure fall occurs inside the eye between the eyewall and the center. Warming by dry subsidence accounts for this fraction of the total hydrostatic pressure fall. Convection in the eyewall causes the warming by doing work on the eye to force the thermally indirect subsidence. Soundings inside hurricane eyes show warm and dry air aloft, separated by an inversion from cloudy air below. Dewpoint depressions at the inversion level, typically 850–500 hPa, are 10–30 K rather than the ∼100 K that would occur if the air descended from tropopause level without dilution by the surrounding cloud. The observed temperature and dewpoint distribution above the inversion can, however, be derived by ∼100 hPa of undilute dry subsidence from an initial sounding that is somewhat more stable than a moist adiabat. It is hypothesized that the air above the inversion has remaine...