Has it become a Cat 6? Do we need a higher standard?

Jeff Masters, a former NOAA Hurricane Hunter and co-founder of Weather Underground, suggested to Scientific American in 2019 that Hurricane Dorian should have received a Category 6 rating, and that there could even be a Category 7 for storms over 210 mph should be taken into account Hurricane Patricia In 2015, wind speeds in the Pacific Ocean peaked with sustained winds of 215 miles per hour. For years, Masters co-authored a blog on Weather Underground called “Category 6.”

“From a climate change communications perspective, it makes sense to expand the Saffir-Simpson scale to include a Category 6 – and Category 7 – to focus attention on this new type of ultra-intense catastrophic hurricane, which is likely to become increasingly common in the US will occur in the coming decades,” Masters wrote, although he acknowledged there was little support from the NHC for expanding the scope.

A recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that higher numbers are needed to “communicate that climate change has caused the winds of the strongest TCs – tropical cyclones – to become significantly stronger.”

Add a category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson scale? Simpson doesn't think so

What do the hurricane categories mean? The video shows damage caused by hurricane winds

Hurricane Categories: Winds define a hurricane and everything is based on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. This video shows the potential damage

Palm Beach Post

In 1991, tropical weather specialist Debi Iacovelli asked Simpson directly whether he thought a new category should be added to his open scale.

“I think it’s irrelevant,” Simpson said. “Because if you are exposed to wind speeds in excess of 150 mph, you have enough damage, if that extreme wind continues on a building for even six seconds, it will cause serious breakage damage, no matter how well it is constructed. It may just blow out the windows, but then again it can actually tear the stairwells and elevator shafts and twist them, and that happens in many buildings so that you can't even use the elevators after experiencing that.

“So I think it doesn't matter what will happen if the wind is stronger than 156 miles per hour. That’s why we didn’t try to go higher anyway.”

How many Category 5 hurricanes have there been in the Atlantic?

According to NOAA's hurricane database, only 41 hurricanes have reached Category 5 strength in the Atlantic since 1924. That's about 2% of the Atlantic storms during this period.

But it's becoming more common: nearly half of them have occurred since 2000, and nine of them have occurred in the last decade.

What was the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic?

Why meteorologists don't just measure the impact of hurricanes based on wind speed

While 90% of deaths from hurricanes and tropical storms are due to water impacts, the traditional hurricane category rating is based solely on wind speed.

Accuweather, Accuweather

Hurricane Allen reached maximum sustained winds of 190 miles per hour in 1980. Hurricane Labor Day in 1935, Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, Hurricane Dorian in 2019, and Hurricane Wilma in 2005 all reached maximum sustained wind speeds of 185 miles per hour.

Mitch (1998), Rita (2005) and Irma (2017) all scored 180.

However, the strength of a hurricane is measured by wind speed and lowest barometric pressure, and according to this measurement, Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (882 mbar) is the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded.