Stronger storms spark debate among hurricane experts to include a Category 6 on scale
ABC News
Hurricane experts are debating adding a Category 6 on the current scale to highlight the increasing possibility of stronger storms as ocean waters continue to warm.
Hurricane experts are debating adding a Category 6 on the current scale to highlight the increasing possibility of stronger storms as ocean waters continue to warm.
Researchers are introducing an extension of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, the system used by the National Hurricane Center to rank the strength of hurricanes, to include a sixth category, beyond the Category 5 classification that indicates a storm with sustained winds of 157 mph or more, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.
The scale currently rates a tropical system as a Category 1 hurricane once sustained winds reach 70 mph. But the Saffir-Simpson scale is "far from perfect," especially in terms of adequately warning residents in impacted regions of the potential dangers to come, Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of the authors of the paper, told ABC News.
"Some Category 3 storms are really deadly, and some Category 5 storms aren't by the time they make landfall," Wehner said.
When the scale was first introduced in the 1970s, it accounted for wind and water-driven destruction from storm surge, the paper highlighted. In 2010, the National Hurricane Center altered the scale to only account for wind.
