Forecasters Call For New Hurricane Classification System

Forecasters are calling for a new system to predict a hurricane's damage potential, one that could have saved lives taken by Hurricane Katrina and that would be based on the storm's size and reach, not just its wind speed and push.

Currently, hurricanes are classified with the Saffir-Simpson scale, which gives them a 1 to 5 rating based on the strength of a storm's winds, the pressure at the center of the storm (also called it's eye) and the amount of ocean water the storm's winds push on shore, called storm surge. (A Category 1 hurricane's winds blow at 74 to 95 mph and Category 5 storms rage faster than 150 mph.)

But these factors don't always give the full picture of how violent and destructive a storm will be, researchers say, pointing out that the area of a storm and how far out from its center the strong winds reach also influence the amount of damage it can do.


SOURCE:
LiveScience.com

After the devastation of Katrina and the supercomputer simulations showing more
powerful storms forming in the future, I was wondering how long it would be until this
really began being talked about.


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