Cat 6 talk continues

[dhweather]

If you saw last night's WLOX-TV (Gulfport, MS) Hurricane Season special,
their Chief Meteorologist Mike Reader brought this up.

That's just pointless.

What did Camille do here? Andrew in Florida?

A cat 5 leaves nothing behind, there's no reason to even discuss
a "cat 6"

[dhweather]

Also, they said 70,000 homes in Mississippi were totally destroyed by Katrina,
many more damaged.

[boca]

very true Cat 5 should be the max.

[Loring]

we were discussing last year about the idea of throwing out/discontinuing the saffir simpson scale and replacing it with something that would accomodate more damage related attributes than just wind speed.

[brunota2003]

I say Cat 5 is the highest and that is the end of it...period end of discussion...IMHO

[Cookiely]

I think they need to have a special scale for storm surge specific for geographical location and the storm itself. Forget cat 6, cat 5 total destruction. What's a cat 6 going to do remove the foundation of the home and leave a hole in the ground.

[Thunder44]

I guess the only thing worse than "catastrophic" is "apocalyptic". If they can prove that a hurricane can bring the "end of the world", than I'm for a Cat 6.

[jimvb]

On another thread I defined categories of hurricanes up to Category 8, and then "Inconceivable hurricane". (I find my four categories of tropical storm more useful, however.)

As far as broadcasting to the public is concerned, Category 5 might be enough, until the day comes, because of global warming perhaps, when there are Category 5 storms all over the place, maybe six a season or more. Last year was an approach to that with four Category 5 storms. If that happens, the public will go weary and say, "Oh, that's just another Category 5 hurricane. They come every week.". When that comes, I think the public should be informed that a Category 6 storm is coming, if its wind speeds exceed about 185 mph. Or maybe a Category 10 or 20, as the public may not think much about a storm that is just one step higher. That should get the public to take notice that a really devastating storm may be headed their way.

[Beam]

Jim, I hate to sound callous, but trying to appeal to anyone who becomes apathetic about category five hurricanes to take heed of the situation, seems an awful lot like interfering with natural selection to me. it's even sillier if you have to say 'Category (insert random ridiculous number here)' to make people aware of the danger. The same goes for the whole 'Cat 6' debate in general, really.

The smart ones won't fall into complacency, and those who have the means to do so will get the bloody hell out of Dodge for a major, no matter how often they occur. The fools who become less alarmed by such a destructive storm simply because they happen more frequently, and who sit at home watching the local meteorologist sweating, lecturing, playing footage from Andrew, and changing his pants every five minutes because a category four is 24 hours away while they're having prime ribs and margaritas out on the deck... well, they'll be a victim of evolution. I have no sympathy for the stupid.

End of Line.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

I think 175 mph should be cat6. It takes a special storm to get that strong.

[ktulu909]

I think that a slash type scale needs to be implemented,Katrina was the perfect example of that.It had recently been a Cat 5 and wind speeds dropped to what some believe was a Cat 2,but the surge that came ashore with it was still a Cat 4 or Cat 5.

For instance Katrina could have been labeled a category 3/5 or something similar.

[jimvb]

I can see the usefulness of ktulu909's Category m/n notation. Katrina may have been a Category 3 at landfall, but it had a Category 5 (or maybe 6?!) storm surge, from it being Category 5 in the midddle of the GOM.

Another possibility is two categories - one for speed, and one for storm surge.

[george_r_1961]

Just my 2 cents: If it aint broke dont fix it. The term "superhurricane" is already used by many including some mets though I have yet to see it used by NHC.

[wxman57]

I can see the usefulness of ktulu909's Category m/n notation. Katrina may have been a Category 3 at landfall, but it had a Category 5 (or maybe 6?!) storm surge, from it being Category 5 in the midddle of the GOM.


Another possibility is two categories - one for speed, and one for storm surge.

Ok, one more time, repeat after me -- there is no such thing as a "Category 3 or Category 4 or 5 storm surge...". The Saffir Simpson scale is ONLY a wind scale, nothing more. You cannot attribute a storm surge to the peak 1-minute wind in a hurricane, as it's only a minor variable in the generation of storm surge. Radius of maxium winds and the shape of the coast and offshore water depth are much more significant than max winds.

It doesn't matter that Katrina had a small area of Cat 5 winds a day before landfall, that had virtually no impact on the landfall storm surge. What did matter was the size of Katrina's hurricane force and greater wind field prior to and at landfall. That large wind field pushed a large volume of water into the MS coast.

But your suggestion about removing any mention of storm surge with respect to the SS scale is a good one. Actually, there was an attempt to attribute a storm surge range to the SS scale early on, but it was abandoned. Unfortunately, many evacuation zones are based upon SS category storm surge. Consider that a hurricane like Katrina - exactly as it hit the MS coast, could produce a surge anywhere from 4-6 feet to over 30 feet, depending upon where it hit, forward speed, offshore water depth, and angle of approach to the coast. So if you're using the SS scale to approximate storm surge, the range for Cat 3 is between 4 ft and about 30 ft. Kind of makes it useless for determining storm surge, doesn't it/

I'm in the process of writing a detailed explanation of the generation of storm surge for the S2K newsletter. Hopefully, it'll explain to everyone how the storm surge is actually generated and convey the difficulty in predicting potential storm surge from peak wind speed alone.

[Frank P]

I can see the usefulness of ktulu909's Category m/n notation. Katrina may have been a Category 3 at landfall, but it had a Category 5 (or maybe 6?!) storm surge, from it being Category 5 in the midddle of the GOM.


Another possibility is two categories - one for speed, and one for storm surge.

Ok, one more time, repeat after me -- there is no such thing as a "Category 3 or Category 4 or 5 storm surge...". The Saffir Simpson scale is ONLY a wind scale, nothing more. You cannot attribute a storm surge to the peak 1-minute wind in a hurricane, as it's only a minor variable in the generation of storm surge. Radius of maxium winds and the shape of the coast and offshore water depth are much more significant than max winds.

It doesn't matter that Katrina had a small area of Cat 5 winds a day before landfall, that had virtually no impact on the landfall storm surge. What did matter was the size of Katrina's hurricane force and greater wind field prior to and at landfall. That large wind field pushed a large volume of water into the MS coast.

But your suggestion about removing any mention of storm surge with respect to the SS scale is a good one. Actually, there was an attempt to attribute a storm surge range to the SS scale early on, but it was abandoned. Unfortunately, many evacuation zones are based upon SS category storm surge. Consider that a hurricane like Katrina - exactly as it hit the MS coast, could produce a surge anywhere from 4-6 feet to over 30 feet, depending upon where it hit, forward speed, offshore water depth, and angle of approach to the coast. So if you're using the SS scale to approximate storm surge, the range for Cat 3 is between 4 ft and about 30 ft. Kind of makes it useless for determining storm surge, doesn't it/

I'm in the process of writing a detailed explanation of the generation of storm surge for the S2K newsletter. Hopefully, it'll explain to everyone how the storm surge is actually generated and convey the difficulty in predicting potential storm surge from peak wind speed alone.

This article was posted in the Mobile Press Register today...

Katrina spurs debate over Saffir-Simpson scale

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/i ... xml&coll=3

[george_r_1961]

All revising the SS scale is going to do is create confusion. Simply put, the SS classification is based on wind speed only...not surge and not even pressure for that matter. To say a storm is a Category whatever due to pressure may often be wrong. Remember winds are created by the pressure gradient between the cyclone and the surrounding environment. Not saying that we are ever gonna see a 995 mb category 5 or a 900mb category 1 but I think you get my drift here.

[JonathanBelles]

after cat 5(175 mph) it should be come a super hurricane...
regular hurricane
major
super

[invictus61101]

What difference does it make what you call it? Complete devastation is complete devastation and regardless of "category" this happens more often than not. Try telling someone who came home to a flattened house that they should feel happy that it was "only" a category 3 storm.

[senorpepr]

after cat 5(175 mph) it should be come a super hurricane...
regular hurricane
major
super

Technically, Super Hurricane (like Super Typhoon) is a military term referring to storms at or about 130KT (upper end of cat four).

[HurricaneGirl]

Ultra Mega Super