"The main consideration going into the season was just very, very warm ocean temperatures, either record-breaking in parts, ...

When Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica on October 28, it showed just how devastatingly powerful a Category 5 hurricane can be—and then some. It will be weeks before experts can truly assess just ...

Hurricane Melissa is approaching Jamaica as a Category 5 storm with 180 mph winds. A recent study suggests global warming is fueling more intense and rapidly strengthening hurricanes. Scientists have ...

When you hear terms like Category 1, Category 3 or even the rare Category 5 mentioned regarding hurricanes, what is being discussed is the classification system for hurricanes based on their winds.

A University of South Florida researcher and a team from the Netherlands are proposing a new way to measure hurricane severity. Jennifer Collins had been studying evacuation patterns when she saw ...

For the last few years, I have opined about the inadequacy of the Saffir — Simpson scale for conveying the full impacts of hurricanes. Harvey (2017), Milton (2024) and Helene (2024) are examples of ...

Storm surge and rainfall — not wind — cause the majority of hurricane deaths, yet are absent from the current warning system. Researchers developed and tested the Tropical Cyclone Severity Scale, ...

Hurricane Melissa has exploded into a massive Category 5 storm, undergoing an impressive “extreme rapid intensification” this late in the Atlantic hurricane season with life-threatening winds of over ...

NORFOLK, Va. — The Saffir-Simpson Scale. You've heard of it, you've even used it to talk about hurricanes with your friends and family. But how much do you really know about it? Each time you hear a ...

The AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes categorizes storms on a six-point scale. Like the Saffir-Simpson Scale, the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes uses a 1 to 5 rating but also ...

Tropical systems begin as tropical depressions, which are areas of low pressure with wind speeds of up to 38 miles per hour. When those winds strengthen and reach between 39 and 73 miles per hour, the ...

Since 1971, meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center have rated tropical systems based on the Saffir-Simpson scale. This is a scale that measures the strongest wind speed around the eye of a ...