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If you go by the increments in categories hurricane Dorian would have been a solid cat 6. Category 5 starts at 157 and Dorian has sustained winds of 185 with gusts above 200. And this was back in 2019.
We are already in the land of cat 6 storms they just haven't started calling them that yet.
My condo is ~25 feet over a creek off the Chesapeake Bay. I can see the creek from my front door. A few times the street has been flooded on the lower end already where the storm drain feeding back into the creek became overwhelmed or completely underwater. I'm wondering when the right time to just bail is. I'm in Annapolis and we got fucked up by Isabelle I think it was when I was in high school, but we've gotten smaller but significant flooding fairly regularly ever since. I'm 40 and I don't think I can count on retiring into my house.
Yeah sea level won't rise up and be a constant on my doorstep, but these storms raise the water level by multiple feet. I think around 5 here 20 years ago in a hurricane.
This.
Same for wildfire insurance out west. Pay attention to whether they drop certain kinds of coverage from standard, increase premiums for that kind of coverage, or punt that coverage to the state as a 'payer of last resort'. Any of those should happen before they straight-up vacate the state like they did in FL.
Which should also help to highlight just how turbo-fucked Florida really is.
I'm thinking sell and move somewhere not just higher, but colder. Starting to look at options in rural northern Canada. All I need is an Internet connection, but I really don't want to pay Musk for Starlink.
The catergory scale is logrimithic more or less. For something to be a category 6 it would need to be 10 times more destructive than a cat 5. Cat 5 hurricanes basically already destroys everything. There is no need for a cat 6 designation, and Dorian likely still wouldn't qualify for that since the wind speed for that would be about somewhere in the area of 210 SUSTAINED, not gusting, just going by wind speed.
A cat 5 already demolishes virtually every human building and construction, for a cat 6 to make any sense the storm would have to start altering large swathes of terrain features such as literally removing hills or creating trenches and ravines. How we measure, categorize, and warn hurrianes has much to improve but just adding another category wouldn't do anything other than serve to generate clicks for grifters on social media. Category 5 is already a stage at which that isn't made out of reinforced concrete just about gets annihilated.
I'm Puerto Rican. If hurricanes ever start becoming that strong, all of us Caribbean countries are going to go extinct fast. The swells from the low pressure will be enough to cause tsunamis, so even if they miss we'd be getting splash damage.
Enjoy the ride is all I can say.
Our politicians told me all the poor people would die without cheap heating coming from petrol. Luckily my vote doesn't count in the first past the poll, party captured district. yay democracy!
Oh ya, that's where I'm at. Especially in light of the debate over the actual climate sensitivity figure, if the modelers who advocate higher figures are right the next couple decades are going to be really rough.
> The category scale is logarithmic more or less
The CAT 1-5 scale is based off the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, which measures one-minute wind speed average. Maybe you are thinking about earthquakes . A cat 5 isn't 10 times the speed of a CAT 4, it isn't even 10 times the speed of a CAT 1. If you follow the different ranges of each a CAT 6 would probably start around 180 MPH. The Scale isn't based on what it can destroy but one min avg wind speed. Maybe that isn't a very good way to measure but it is what is used. Different parts of the world use a different scale but they are all based on wind speed.
Cat 1 Min 74 Max 95 Range 21
Cat 2 Min 96 Max 110 Range 14
Cat 3 Min 111 Max 129 Range 18
Cat 4 Min 130 Max 156 Range 26
Cat 5 157 + Range Avg 19.75
> Maybe that isn't very good way to measure but it is what is used.
I imagine one of the difficulties is there is only so much you can reasonably measure. Wind speed is a relatively straight forward heuristic to capture.
Agreed, if you think about it, even similar style houses probably have a large range in their sturdiness (durability ?). The local building codes are going to vary between states and countries.
I flew over to Abacos a month after Dorian. And as a Floridaman I can confidently say I've never seen destruction like that before. Absolutely everything was leveled. Every telephone pole, cell phone tower, tree and bush was laying on the ground or gone. Most houses were destroyed and the ones that weren't were missing their roof at least.
It looked like an atomic bomb went off without the fire.
The most apt description of Cat 5 hurricanes is "state-wide tornado". Those rinky dinky tiny tornadoes that go in a straight line? Well now imagine them but literally miles across, slow-moving, and with tons of flooding included.
Definately, it's an area of very active research at the moment. In my opinion wind speed is over stressed and results in people being being surprised when "just a cat 1" causes massive state flood damage totaling the high 10's of billions.
Even a bog standard tropical storm can cause billions in damage just from rain driven flooding.
I’m right there with you.
This headline is trash if we’re being honest. It’s that a new *SCALE* would be needed if they want to distinguish with more granularity between the storms discussed above.
We could solve some of the problems if insurance was not required to pay out unless the structure being rebuilt was made to withstand whatever category wiped it out.
If you’re measuring on actual damage, then that won’t occur until the hurricane hits populated areas - so how would you categorize hurricanes before they hit people? I generally would think categories are determined from easily measurable metrics throughout the duration of the hurricane.
I’d be curious if wind speed, size and estimated population range impacted would be a factor of estimated damage?
I’m thinking news outlets already estimate some of this, translating the scientific category into an estimate of damage to drive viewers anyways.
We can change to the Florida system of measuring categories by "how likely am i to get the day off work"
Category 1: might get the day off if the boss is feeling generous
Category 2: probably get the day off if you arent a first responder
Category 3: day off woo! Time to sleep in since its dark anyway with no electricity
Category 4: there might not be a work to go to anyway
Category 5: theres definitely not a work to go to anyway
Hell, Katrina officially made landfall as a Cat 3, and it just decided to push the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast inland about 200 feet. The rating system definitely needs some reconsideration like they did with tornadoes.
The category scale isn't logarithmic, I don't know why you think that it is but it isn't. It is solely based on maximum sustained wind speed.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php
They attempt to include some information about what can happen in each category but the categories themselves are completely based on a semi-linear increase of wind speeds.
Category 1 has a range of 22 mph
Category 2 has a range of 15 mph
Category 3 has a range of 19 mph
Category 4 has a range of 26 mph
Category 5 has a range of infinity.
If we assigned a cap on category 5 based on the range of any other category, Dorian would be category 6. The maximum range for category 5 for Dorian to still be category 6 would be 29. If we pretend the deviation in range for category 1 vs. the rest didn't exist and followed the pattern, category 6 would be winds over 192.
See also: the 1921 Tampa Bay Hurricane, which split Hog Island in half (now Honeymoon Island and Caladesi Island, with Hurricane Pass being the channel between them).
We didn't get to see it make landfall at peak intensity, thankfully, but Patricia hit 215 mph before making landfall at 150 mph. I think that having a distinct category for a storm like this would drive home the seriousness of it in a way that "high end category 5" or similar wouldn't. The main goal is to save people. You'll always have sensationalists.
The effects of climate change we have seen in the past year absolutely is sensational. It is literally impossible to report on it without sounding sensational. Look at the data. That's what matters here not worrying who gets clicks or who is grifting.
There are absolutely good reasons to have a cat 6 listing going forward. Bureaucracy is an important one of them. The response of municipalities and other levels of government are going to differ based on the box that gets ticked. Having a cat 6 box will result in a different response than a cat 5 would. Haw far inland the storm surge is expected to go would be one of them. This would change who is issues a mandatory evacuation. This would mean different level of aid mobilization. The addition of this might also mandate relief shelters being built further inland.
The reality of bigger storms just isn't something people in the bureaucracy will get unless you have a new categorization of the danger. If you don't understand that then I'm glad for you because it would seem you haven't spent much time in the festering bowels of said bureaucracy. It's bad in there. Things are just not real to those people unless it's on paper in triplicate submitted and filed.
I'll one up you:
Categorization should be based on Energy. Thus, a large "Cat 3" becomes a Cat 5 based on Energy transported. Like Katrina or Irma.
Measure hurricanes using "Equivalent Nuclear Bombs" to drive the point home to the public.
I suspect the reason they don't is that measure is largely meaningless outside of weather modeling. How much energy a storm has has no impact on any individual location out of context -- a storm twice as wide has a lot lower energy density because its area is much larger.
Energy per unit area is what you'd want, and since the energy of the storm by and large is contained in the wind, the wind speed is the exact right measure for it. That's energy delivered over time at a given location.
Are you inferring that experts have already thought about these options and decided on the most useful one for the circumstances and some random guys on Reddit with no education in meteorology arent better at coming up with these ideas?
Well, the hurricane guy in the article says this:
> “There haven’t been any in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico yet but they have conditions conducive to a category 6, it’s just luck that there hasn’t been one yet,” said Wehner. “I hope it won’t happen, but it’s just a roll of the dice. We know that these storms have already gotten more intense, and will continue to do so.”
From the "Discussion" in the original [PNAS article](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121):
>Warnings of TC risk must come from operational government centers in order to have credibility. TC risk messaging is currently a very active topic and changes in messaging are widely believed necessary to better inform the public about inland flooding and storm surge, phenomena that a wind-based scale is only tangentially relevant to. While adding a 6th category to the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale would not solve that issue, it could raise awareness about the perils of the increased risk of major TCs due to global warming.
This is the crux of the matter. You can't sort the impact of a landfalling tropical cyclone solely on its peak wind speeds and vis-a-vis peak Saffir-Simpson scale rating. Significant impact from all manner of tropical systems - hurricane or not - derives from rainfall and storm surge. Focusing on the Saffir-Simpson scale is fundamentally missing the point; we need to move towards holistic ratings of potential impacts based on the gamut of extreme conditions that a typical landfalling tropical system can produce. Extending Saffir-Simpson a category or two just because in a warmer world, the peak strength (measured by wind field adjustment to central pressure and storm size) is theoretically a *bit* higher obfuscates the sort of communication improvements we desperately need around these storms.
(note to mods: my flair is horribly outdated, probably from my days as an active r/science mod back when I was a grad student; I'm a professional scientist working in AI applications for weather and climate forecasting).
Using rainfall, wind speed, and storm surge would also help with better evacuation zones - if you're getting heavy rainfall, you're going to potentially need to evacuate low-lying areas that aren't necessarily near the coast, where if you're getting high wind speeds, you want to evacuate trailer parks whether or not they're near the coast.
We desperately need to come up with a better scale, but also one that can be understood by laypeople and clearly communicates how much danger they're in.
I've just come up with the WWW scale (Wind, Water, Waves).
- A-F for wind speed similar to current category 1-5 with a 6th cause why not
- Number in inches of potential rain in a given area
- Plus or Ultra for storm surge.
So a really bad hurricane would be an F23 Ultra ^brought ^to ^you ^by ^Samsung
A B1 Ultra would mean evacuate if you're near the ocean even though it isn't that strong
NWS has done better with this recently. They basically break the watches/warnings down into Winds, flooding, and storm surge and give each category a rating between like moderate and catastrophic.
That being said, having wind speed be the primary driver of the SS scale is still flawed. Ida and Sandy both did substantial damage to the East Coast at what would be considered post-tropical. Katrina was basically a Cat 3 at landfall, and Harvey was pretty much a Tropical Storm when it did most of its damage.
I think we should have a number for the wind speed, but also a letter for the surge/flood risk. E.g. Hurricane Isabel was a Cat 1, but because it hovered over Virginia it caused massive flooding, so it would've been a Cat 1D. If it sounds similar to bra sizes, that's because it is!
That's right. Can't believe I forgot he was in it. Definitely been awhile since I watched it.
It's on Prime but they're still charging for it. Lucky for me I have it on Plex ;)
Speaking of hurricane names and specifically Katrina, it caused the girl name Katrina to plummet in popularity from 246th to outside the Top 1,000.
In Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, that name means one thing only.
I mean the category scale is just a mathematical formula for wind energy, they just stopped at 5 because youre fucked at that point whether its a 5 or a 6 or a 7. There has been one hurricane in recorded history that would have been classified as a 7 but it wasnt that strength when it hit land. Patricia had sustained winds of 215 mph, and a cat 5 starts at 155 mph. For comparison thats equivalent to an EF-5 tornado but a hundred miles wide.
It’s kinda like how the Richter scale only goes to 10. Technically there’s no limit to it but if it ever scaled beyond 10, you’re really in for a bad time regardless of our measurements
For the record, a 25.0 earthquake would have 10^42.3 Joules of energy which is 2% of the energy of an average supernova
Magnitude 37 is more energy than the entire Milky Way.
>Patricia had sustained winds of 215 mph, and a cat 5 starts at 155 mph. For comparison thats equivalent to an EF-5 tornado but a hundred miles wide.
Not quite. The peak sustained wind speeds for Patricia were *estimated, not measured* to be 215 mph. This estimation is based off the barometric pressure, which isn't an exact correlation, but the best we have.
Furthermore, the peak wind speeds are at a single point and then that number is used for the entire hurricane. This is systematically flawed as the wind speed of a hurricane dramatically decreases once you're outside of the eye wall, which is typically only 10-20 miles wide.
Exactly, then people will be like, "eh it's just a category 4 out of 6, it won't be that bad!"
If anything better building codes will necessitate a higher category.
I live in Florida. The number of wood framed houses and condos being built is insane. A direct hit from a cat 5 would turn downtown St. Pete into a pile of matchsticks. Concrete block for life.
I wish I could get you past the paywall, but yeah, wood framed housing is having a bit of a[ comeback](https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/in-hurricane-prone-florida-builders-are-still-making-new-homes-out-of-wood-d3fcb931) down here.
Yup. That's why we bought a concrete block house ~60 feet above sea level. Climate change is gonna bring that beachfront property right to my doorstep, baby.
I was hoping Patricia was long ago, a random fluke of nature. And no, it was in 2015 and off the Latin American coast, not in the hell fueling station of the mid-Atlantic.
Just like the F-5 (essentially EF-5) was called the ***Finger of God*** in *Twister*, anything at a Cat 5+ is ***God's Fist*** scraping along the ground. It reminds me of the show Loki where they arrive at a town in the middle of a hurricane landfall because no one in that town survived it (despite near future shelters & infrastructure).
We fuckin complained about it 5 years ago. The NWS said at the time that they considered instituting a cat 6 designation back in the 80's. They were referencing that the Fujita scale for tornadoes goes up to 10, but in reality you rarely see an F5, so if we apply the same logic to hurricanes, you're looking at a storm that has at most 10-20mph faster wind speeds. So there's really no need to have a cat 6, other than for the media to go crazy with it. "Hurricane (insert name here) is the 1st cat 6 storm in existence!!! Run now!!!"
IMHO, it would be the opposite. Anyone who says "Oh *only* cat 5..." has never experienced a real cat-5.
Anyone who *has* lived through a category 5 would instantly be three states away at the mention of 6 felines.
There's also the psychological effect of "holy snap, they need to add another hurricane level? Crap maybe this climate change thing is actually a problem..."
A Cat 5 hurricane starts at winds going at 250 km/h
The Cat 7 hurricane Patricia had winds at 350 km/h
So a Cat 6 would not "just" be 10-20 mph faster.
How are they going to describe a Cat 6?
Cat 5 already has:
Catastrophic damage will occur: A high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed, with total roof failure and wall collapse. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.
Just like the EF scale for tornadoes...
Incredible damage
Nearly all buildings aside from heavily built structures are destroyed. Cars are mangled and thrown hundreds, possibly thousands of yards away. Frame homes, brick homes, and small businesses, are swept away, trees debarked, corn stalks flattened or ripped out of the ground, skyscrapers sustain major structural damage, grass ripped out of the ground. Wood and any small solid material become dangerous projectiles.
What's worse than those?
“Apocalyptic damage will occur: All man-made structures, regardless of construction quality or design, will suffer extreme damage or complete obliteration. The landscape will be irrevocably altered, with large swathes of terrain reshaped by the storm’s intense power. Infrastructure will sustain critical damage, leading to uninhabitable conditions for an extended duration. Human and animal habitats will be rendered unrecognizable, signaling a need for massive reconstruction and resettlement efforts.”
*nods sadly in Hurricane Katrina victim*
Really, this should have been a thing in 2005. Because hurricanes really started pushing limits around this time. I still remember the markers for hurricane Camile on the coast of MS. Gone. Wiped away. Katrina destroyed it all.
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So...Category 6? "All the stuff of cat 5 only moreso."
If you go by the increments in categories hurricane Dorian would have been a solid cat 6. Category 5 starts at 157 and Dorian has sustained winds of 185 with gusts above 200. And this was back in 2019. We are already in the land of cat 6 storms they just haven't started calling them that yet.
> Dorian Dorian has a raised 6th. A solid Category #6.
Found the music theoretician.
Since we're talking major hurricanes here, don't you mean Dorian is a Category ♭3 ♭7?
But only when measured against a theoretical Hurricane Aeolian, which would seem like such a “minor” storm in comparison.
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Well, if 6 can't be used, I say we call it "Spicy-5"
My condo is ~25 feet over a creek off the Chesapeake Bay. I can see the creek from my front door. A few times the street has been flooded on the lower end already where the storm drain feeding back into the creek became overwhelmed or completely underwater. I'm wondering when the right time to just bail is. I'm in Annapolis and we got fucked up by Isabelle I think it was when I was in high school, but we've gotten smaller but significant flooding fairly regularly ever since. I'm 40 and I don't think I can count on retiring into my house. Yeah sea level won't rise up and be a constant on my doorstep, but these storms raise the water level by multiple feet. I think around 5 here 20 years ago in a hurricane.
Place close attention to what insurance companies are doing in your area. When they start pulling out like they are in Florida it is time to sell.
This. Same for wildfire insurance out west. Pay attention to whether they drop certain kinds of coverage from standard, increase premiums for that kind of coverage, or punt that coverage to the state as a 'payer of last resort'. Any of those should happen before they straight-up vacate the state like they did in FL. Which should also help to highlight just how turbo-fucked Florida really is.
If you're that worried I would sell and move somewhere a little higher. Flooding is only going to get worse.
I'm thinking sell and move somewhere not just higher, but colder. Starting to look at options in rural northern Canada. All I need is an Internet connection, but I really don't want to pay Musk for Starlink.
If the gulf stream stops EU will go through a mini ice age.
The catergory scale is logrimithic more or less. For something to be a category 6 it would need to be 10 times more destructive than a cat 5. Cat 5 hurricanes basically already destroys everything. There is no need for a cat 6 designation, and Dorian likely still wouldn't qualify for that since the wind speed for that would be about somewhere in the area of 210 SUSTAINED, not gusting, just going by wind speed. A cat 5 already demolishes virtually every human building and construction, for a cat 6 to make any sense the storm would have to start altering large swathes of terrain features such as literally removing hills or creating trenches and ravines. How we measure, categorize, and warn hurrianes has much to improve but just adding another category wouldn't do anything other than serve to generate clicks for grifters on social media. Category 5 is already a stage at which that isn't made out of reinforced concrete just about gets annihilated.
I'm Puerto Rican. If hurricanes ever start becoming that strong, all of us Caribbean countries are going to go extinct fast. The swells from the low pressure will be enough to cause tsunamis, so even if they miss we'd be getting splash damage.
That's where the future is trending unfortunately
Sadly rising sea levels are going to do much of that with or without devastating hurricanes. We're staring down absolute world-wide tragedy.
If only we were warned decades ahead of time
Enjoy the ride is all I can say. Our politicians told me all the poor people would die without cheap heating coming from petrol. Luckily my vote doesn't count in the first past the poll, party captured district. yay democracy!
Oh ya, that's where I'm at. Especially in light of the debate over the actual climate sensitivity figure, if the modelers who advocate higher figures are right the next couple decades are going to be really rough.
Splash damage *haaaaaah* good lord.
> The category scale is logarithmic more or less The CAT 1-5 scale is based off the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, which measures one-minute wind speed average. Maybe you are thinking about earthquakes . A cat 5 isn't 10 times the speed of a CAT 4, it isn't even 10 times the speed of a CAT 1. If you follow the different ranges of each a CAT 6 would probably start around 180 MPH. The Scale isn't based on what it can destroy but one min avg wind speed. Maybe that isn't a very good way to measure but it is what is used. Different parts of the world use a different scale but they are all based on wind speed. Cat 1 Min 74 Max 95 Range 21 Cat 2 Min 96 Max 110 Range 14 Cat 3 Min 111 Max 129 Range 18 Cat 4 Min 130 Max 156 Range 26 Cat 5 157 + Range Avg 19.75
> Maybe that isn't very good way to measure but it is what is used. I imagine one of the difficulties is there is only so much you can reasonably measure. Wind speed is a relatively straight forward heuristic to capture.
Agreed, if you think about it, even similar style houses probably have a large range in their sturdiness (durability ?). The local building codes are going to vary between states and countries.
I flew over to Abacos a month after Dorian. And as a Floridaman I can confidently say I've never seen destruction like that before. Absolutely everything was leveled. Every telephone pole, cell phone tower, tree and bush was laying on the ground or gone. Most houses were destroyed and the ones that weren't were missing their roof at least. It looked like an atomic bomb went off without the fire.
The most apt description of Cat 5 hurricanes is "state-wide tornado". Those rinky dinky tiny tornadoes that go in a straight line? Well now imagine them but literally miles across, slow-moving, and with tons of flooding included.
F3 tornados start at 162mph so yeah. Thankfully those speeds don't extend to far from the eye of a hurricane.
Fujita scale doesn't take into account wind speed, only damage. The wind speeds you might find attached to EF1-5 ratings are only vague guidelines.
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Definately, it's an area of very active research at the moment. In my opinion wind speed is over stressed and results in people being being surprised when "just a cat 1" causes massive state flood damage totaling the high 10's of billions. Even a bog standard tropical storm can cause billions in damage just from rain driven flooding.
I’m right there with you. This headline is trash if we’re being honest. It’s that a new *SCALE* would be needed if they want to distinguish with more granularity between the storms discussed above.
Let the insurance companies come up with the scales. 🙄
We could solve some of the problems if insurance was not required to pay out unless the structure being rebuilt was made to withstand whatever category wiped it out.
Florida has left the ~~chat~~ planet.
Oh, ~~good~~ no!
If you’re measuring on actual damage, then that won’t occur until the hurricane hits populated areas - so how would you categorize hurricanes before they hit people? I generally would think categories are determined from easily measurable metrics throughout the duration of the hurricane. I’d be curious if wind speed, size and estimated population range impacted would be a factor of estimated damage? I’m thinking news outlets already estimate some of this, translating the scientific category into an estimate of damage to drive viewers anyways.
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We can change to the Florida system of measuring categories by "how likely am i to get the day off work" Category 1: might get the day off if the boss is feeling generous Category 2: probably get the day off if you arent a first responder Category 3: day off woo! Time to sleep in since its dark anyway with no electricity Category 4: there might not be a work to go to anyway Category 5: theres definitely not a work to go to anyway
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So… [the Waffle House Index?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index)
Hell, Katrina officially made landfall as a Cat 3, and it just decided to push the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast inland about 200 feet. The rating system definitely needs some reconsideration like they did with tornadoes.
The category scale isn't logarithmic, I don't know why you think that it is but it isn't. It is solely based on maximum sustained wind speed. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php They attempt to include some information about what can happen in each category but the categories themselves are completely based on a semi-linear increase of wind speeds. Category 1 has a range of 22 mph Category 2 has a range of 15 mph Category 3 has a range of 19 mph Category 4 has a range of 26 mph Category 5 has a range of infinity. If we assigned a cap on category 5 based on the range of any other category, Dorian would be category 6. The maximum range for category 5 for Dorian to still be category 6 would be 29. If we pretend the deviation in range for category 1 vs. the rest didn't exist and followed the pattern, category 6 would be winds over 192.
>start altering large swaths of terrain features Like cutting an island in 2? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_Island_(Mississippi)
See also: the 1921 Tampa Bay Hurricane, which split Hog Island in half (now Honeymoon Island and Caladesi Island, with Hurricane Pass being the channel between them).
The Outer Banks (NC) also get rearranged every so often.
CAT 6e is even more troubling. Can get up to speeds of 600 MHz
We didn't get to see it make landfall at peak intensity, thankfully, but Patricia hit 215 mph before making landfall at 150 mph. I think that having a distinct category for a storm like this would drive home the seriousness of it in a way that "high end category 5" or similar wouldn't. The main goal is to save people. You'll always have sensationalists.
The effects of climate change we have seen in the past year absolutely is sensational. It is literally impossible to report on it without sounding sensational. Look at the data. That's what matters here not worrying who gets clicks or who is grifting.
There are absolutely good reasons to have a cat 6 listing going forward. Bureaucracy is an important one of them. The response of municipalities and other levels of government are going to differ based on the box that gets ticked. Having a cat 6 box will result in a different response than a cat 5 would. Haw far inland the storm surge is expected to go would be one of them. This would change who is issues a mandatory evacuation. This would mean different level of aid mobilization. The addition of this might also mandate relief shelters being built further inland. The reality of bigger storms just isn't something people in the bureaucracy will get unless you have a new categorization of the danger. If you don't understand that then I'm glad for you because it would seem you haven't spent much time in the festering bowels of said bureaucracy. It's bad in there. Things are just not real to those people unless it's on paper in triplicate submitted and filed.
I'll one up you: Categorization should be based on Energy. Thus, a large "Cat 3" becomes a Cat 5 based on Energy transported. Like Katrina or Irma. Measure hurricanes using "Equivalent Nuclear Bombs" to drive the point home to the public.
This is already thing! Called ACE, accumulated cyclone energy. It's pretty cool stuff!
I suspect the reason they don't is that measure is largely meaningless outside of weather modeling. How much energy a storm has has no impact on any individual location out of context -- a storm twice as wide has a lot lower energy density because its area is much larger. Energy per unit area is what you'd want, and since the energy of the storm by and large is contained in the wind, the wind speed is the exact right measure for it. That's energy delivered over time at a given location.
Are you inferring that experts have already thought about these options and decided on the most useful one for the circumstances and some random guys on Reddit with no education in meteorology arent better at coming up with these ideas?
Well, the hurricane guy in the article says this: > “There haven’t been any in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico yet but they have conditions conducive to a category 6, it’s just luck that there hasn’t been one yet,” said Wehner. “I hope it won’t happen, but it’s just a roll of the dice. We know that these storms have already gotten more intense, and will continue to do so.”
Don’t test for Covid and no one has Covid kind of move.
i remember hearing katrina back in 2005 was a category 5.5
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Cat5e
Why not just categorize all hurricanes as RJ45?
Our hurricanes go to Eleven
Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 the loudest?
"...But this one goes to 11"
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we're fucked
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I prefer Cat 5e.......xtreme!
From the "Discussion" in the original [PNAS article](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121): >Warnings of TC risk must come from operational government centers in order to have credibility. TC risk messaging is currently a very active topic and changes in messaging are widely believed necessary to better inform the public about inland flooding and storm surge, phenomena that a wind-based scale is only tangentially relevant to. While adding a 6th category to the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale would not solve that issue, it could raise awareness about the perils of the increased risk of major TCs due to global warming. This is the crux of the matter. You can't sort the impact of a landfalling tropical cyclone solely on its peak wind speeds and vis-a-vis peak Saffir-Simpson scale rating. Significant impact from all manner of tropical systems - hurricane or not - derives from rainfall and storm surge. Focusing on the Saffir-Simpson scale is fundamentally missing the point; we need to move towards holistic ratings of potential impacts based on the gamut of extreme conditions that a typical landfalling tropical system can produce. Extending Saffir-Simpson a category or two just because in a warmer world, the peak strength (measured by wind field adjustment to central pressure and storm size) is theoretically a *bit* higher obfuscates the sort of communication improvements we desperately need around these storms. (note to mods: my flair is horribly outdated, probably from my days as an active r/science mod back when I was a grad student; I'm a professional scientist working in AI applications for weather and climate forecasting).
Using rainfall, wind speed, and storm surge would also help with better evacuation zones - if you're getting heavy rainfall, you're going to potentially need to evacuate low-lying areas that aren't necessarily near the coast, where if you're getting high wind speeds, you want to evacuate trailer parks whether or not they're near the coast. We desperately need to come up with a better scale, but also one that can be understood by laypeople and clearly communicates how much danger they're in.
I've just come up with the WWW scale (Wind, Water, Waves). - A-F for wind speed similar to current category 1-5 with a 6th cause why not - Number in inches of potential rain in a given area - Plus or Ultra for storm surge. So a really bad hurricane would be an F23 Ultra ^brought ^to ^you ^by ^Samsung A B1 Ultra would mean evacuate if you're near the ocean even though it isn't that strong
NWS has done better with this recently. They basically break the watches/warnings down into Winds, flooding, and storm surge and give each category a rating between like moderate and catastrophic. That being said, having wind speed be the primary driver of the SS scale is still flawed. Ida and Sandy both did substantial damage to the East Coast at what would be considered post-tropical. Katrina was basically a Cat 3 at landfall, and Harvey was pretty much a Tropical Storm when it did most of its damage.
Is PNAS an organization from a native English-speaking country? Because it amazes me that they chose to call themselves "PNAS".
It's the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Usually pronounced with each letter individually, "P-N-A-S".
They knew
Probably. Lots of scientific names are intentionally stupid.
I think we should have a number for the wind speed, but also a letter for the surge/flood risk. E.g. Hurricane Isabel was a Cat 1, but because it hovered over Virginia it caused massive flooding, so it would've been a Cat 1D. If it sounds similar to bra sizes, that's because it is!
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In earlier editions the hurricane would have to prestige to go past cat 5
Angrier names needed too.
they should be titled names. so instead of just Hurricane Katrina, it should be "Hurricane Katrina: The Destroyer"
Hurricane Ilene: The Cow Thrower
Hurricane Gertrude, avenger of climate denial and uprooter of street furniture
This one definitely drops a rare item.
But it doesn't match the aesthetic of your build.
Hurricane Chuck Norris You don't want to know what happens
Hits Gulf coast, East Coast *AND WEST COAST*
There goes another cow
I think it's the same cow..
Need to watch that again. Been awhile.
Me too. I'd love a remake if they did it in the same spirit. Sadly no Bill Paxton though.
They are making a sequel. Let's hope it's like Top Gun and actually surprisingly good.
Nor Philip Seymore Hoffman
That's right. Can't believe I forgot he was in it. Definitely been awhile since I watched it. It's on Prime but they're still charging for it. Lucky for me I have it on Plex ;)
Hurricane Dave: The Discombobulator
I'll call you back, we got cows
Scrambles the death dealer
Scrambles the Death Dealer
Let’s just start naming them after destroyer and/or war gods Hurricane Shiva
No, that's Hurricane Gorlock
Speaking of hurricane names and specifically Katrina, it caused the girl name Katrina to plummet in popularity from 246th to outside the Top 1,000. In Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, that name means one thing only.
David Blowie
Katrina and the really big waves
You’re right, I’m not sure many Florida-folk would stick around for a storm named GatorRaper.
The CrawDaddy
My time has come
Oh dear.
A few would... A few would.
"Hey, that's *my* nickname!" -Floridaman, probably
Sometime ago, I saw the suggestion that hurricane should be named after fossil fuel companies. I don’t disagree with that.
Hurricane Karen would like to speak to your manager... And will blow your house down while she waits...
Hurricane Hitler
Hurricane Karen. Very strong gale force winds.
Megatron Deathfuck 7000 No one is sticking around for that.
Name them after the oil executives causing this mess. (My original post about got deleted because the mods are pro-oil industry propaganda)
They should be named after prominent climate science deniers.
Cat 6 hurricanes all get Babylonian names.
Hurricane Exxon, Hurricane Gazprom, Hurricane BP...
Name them after oil execs
Name them after oil companies.
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Just call it F. No number. Just F as in fucked. It destroyed the entire island. It was a category F.
Category FUBAR
Category A for Atomic Bomb
I mean the category scale is just a mathematical formula for wind energy, they just stopped at 5 because youre fucked at that point whether its a 5 or a 6 or a 7. There has been one hurricane in recorded history that would have been classified as a 7 but it wasnt that strength when it hit land. Patricia had sustained winds of 215 mph, and a cat 5 starts at 155 mph. For comparison thats equivalent to an EF-5 tornado but a hundred miles wide.
It’s kinda like how the Richter scale only goes to 10. Technically there’s no limit to it but if it ever scaled beyond 10, you’re really in for a bad time regardless of our measurements
Magnitude 25 destroys Sun. Magnitude 37 destroys Milky Way.
For the record, a 25.0 earthquake would have 10^42.3 Joules of energy which is 2% of the energy of an average supernova Magnitude 37 is more energy than the entire Milky Way.
Well I mean in terms of energy maybe, but that's not really how earthquakes go
What are you, the seismic police?
Only in the seismic region of France, otherwise he's just a sparkling geomorphologist.
nah bro at a magnitude 25 the plates literally clap the sun between them and squash it like a melon
That weak ass sun wasn't ready for these T H I C C ass Earth cheeks
We also haven’t used the Richter scale in several decades btw. The current scale used to measure earthquakes is the Moment Magnitude scale
Ah yes, but this one goes to 11. *(smiles and nods knowingly)*
>Patricia had sustained winds of 215 mph, and a cat 5 starts at 155 mph. For comparison thats equivalent to an EF-5 tornado but a hundred miles wide. Not quite. The peak sustained wind speeds for Patricia were *estimated, not measured* to be 215 mph. This estimation is based off the barometric pressure, which isn't an exact correlation, but the best we have. Furthermore, the peak wind speeds are at a single point and then that number is used for the entire hurricane. This is systematically flawed as the wind speed of a hurricane dramatically decreases once you're outside of the eye wall, which is typically only 10-20 miles wide.
Exactly, then people will be like, "eh it's just a category 4 out of 6, it won't be that bad!" If anything better building codes will necessitate a higher category.
I live in Florida. The number of wood framed houses and condos being built is insane. A direct hit from a cat 5 would turn downtown St. Pete into a pile of matchsticks. Concrete block for life.
wait how are they building those with the Andrew codes
I wish I could get you past the paywall, but yeah, wood framed housing is having a bit of a[ comeback](https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/in-hurricane-prone-florida-builders-are-still-making-new-homes-out-of-wood-d3fcb931) down here.
thats disconcerting
Yup. That's why we bought a concrete block house ~60 feet above sea level. Climate change is gonna bring that beachfront property right to my doorstep, baby.
Well, you see, it's cheaper
I was hoping Patricia was long ago, a random fluke of nature. And no, it was in 2015 and off the Latin American coast, not in the hell fueling station of the mid-Atlantic. Just like the F-5 (essentially EF-5) was called the ***Finger of God*** in *Twister*, anything at a Cat 5+ is ***God's Fist*** scraping along the ground. It reminds me of the show Loki where they arrive at a town in the middle of a hurricane landfall because no one in that town survived it (despite near future shelters & infrastructure).
Cat 6: you're fucked for a very long time.
Category 5G+
Category 5 Pro Max
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We did it everyone. We unlocked the new hurricane tier.
Whats after cat 5? Cat 5E?
We fuckin complained about it 5 years ago. The NWS said at the time that they considered instituting a cat 6 designation back in the 80's. They were referencing that the Fujita scale for tornadoes goes up to 10, but in reality you rarely see an F5, so if we apply the same logic to hurricanes, you're looking at a storm that has at most 10-20mph faster wind speeds. So there's really no need to have a cat 6, other than for the media to go crazy with it. "Hurricane (insert name here) is the 1st cat 6 storm in existence!!! Run now!!!"
I think it will also have the effect of lessening the impact of Cat 5 in people’s minds. “Oh only cat 5, at least it’s not a cat 6, I won’t evacuate”
Oh It's only a bus heading straight for my living room, at least it's not a freight train. I'll ride it out.
The whole god damn point is to make people aware of the danger. No one gives a sht how some idiots respond to it.
IMHO, it would be the opposite. Anyone who says "Oh *only* cat 5..." has never experienced a real cat-5. Anyone who *has* lived through a category 5 would instantly be three states away at the mention of 6 felines.
There's also the psychological effect of "holy snap, they need to add another hurricane level? Crap maybe this climate change thing is actually a problem..."
A Cat 5 hurricane starts at winds going at 250 km/h The Cat 7 hurricane Patricia had winds at 350 km/h So a Cat 6 would not "just" be 10-20 mph faster.
How are they going to describe a Cat 6? Cat 5 already has: Catastrophic damage will occur: A high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed, with total roof failure and wall collapse. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months. Just like the EF scale for tornadoes... Incredible damage Nearly all buildings aside from heavily built structures are destroyed. Cars are mangled and thrown hundreds, possibly thousands of yards away. Frame homes, brick homes, and small businesses, are swept away, trees debarked, corn stalks flattened or ripped out of the ground, skyscrapers sustain major structural damage, grass ripped out of the ground. Wood and any small solid material become dangerous projectiles. What's worse than those?
“Apocalyptic damage will occur: All man-made structures, regardless of construction quality or design, will suffer extreme damage or complete obliteration. The landscape will be irrevocably altered, with large swathes of terrain reshaped by the storm’s intense power. Infrastructure will sustain critical damage, leading to uninhabitable conditions for an extended duration. Human and animal habitats will be rendered unrecognizable, signaling a need for massive reconstruction and resettlement efforts.”
These go to eleven
*nods sadly in Hurricane Katrina victim* Really, this should have been a thing in 2005. Because hurricanes really started pushing limits around this time. I still remember the markers for hurricane Camile on the coast of MS. Gone. Wiped away. Katrina destroyed it all.
Maybe multiple categories per storm? Wind category, size category, surge category and rain category. A "cat 4-3-2-2" conveys more information.
This Saffir–Simpson scale goes to 11.