quote:
From what I can find there has only been 1 storm in recorded history where winds exceeding 190 have been recorded, and that was Hurricane Patricia in the Pacific and it made landfall as a Cat 4 in Jalisco, Mexico on October 23, 2015.

From wiki, so take it for what it’s worth.

I’d add Camille to the list. It’s an estimate, but 200 mph sustained for this storm.

It’s my understanding that wind gauges used to measure speeds from storms 40+ years ago were often destroyed from the winds they were recording.

Maybe this is why estimates exceed what is recorded.

Camille

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Posted by MemphisGuy

Member since Nov 2023

3681 posts

Posted on 2/6/24 at 10:09 am to cyarrr

Question:

From a damage standpoint... is there a difference between 157 mph winds and say... 200 mph winds or even 250 mph winds? Seems like it'd be no different than running your car into a brick wall at either 150 or 200 mph... damage is essentially the same.

Why There's No Such Thing As A Category 6 Hurricane

quote:
Hurricane strength is rated using the Saffir–Simpson scale, first developed in 1971 by Herbert Saffir and Robert Simpson, a civil engineer and meteorologist respectively. While flooding can account for much of the lasting damage a hurricane can cause, the Saffir-Simpson scale is concerned solely with windspeed, using the max speed of sustained winds to organize hurricanes into the five established categories:

Category 1: Very dangerous winds will produce some damage.
74-95 mph winds.

Category 2: Extremely dangerous winds will cause extensive damage. 96-110 mph winds.

Category 3: Devastating damage will occur. 111-129 mph winds.

Category 4: Catastrophic damage will occur. 130-156 mph winds.

Category 5: Catastrophic damage will occur on a large scale. 157 mph or higher winds.

The potential for a Category 6 storms seems obvious. ... It's a moot point however, because the Saffir-Simpson scale is not designed to arbitrarily classify storms into tiers based on wind speed or some sort of abstract power level. The Saffir-Simpson scale is designed to reflect the damage a given storm will cause to buildings and other man-made structures in its path. Category 5 is widespread, catastrophic damage. There's not really anything worse than that.

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Posted by mdomingue

Lafayette, LA

Member since Nov 2010

31089 posts

Posted on 2/6/24 at 11:32 am to cyarrr

quote:
It’s my understanding that wind gauges used to measure speeds from storms 40+ years ago were often destroyed from the winds they were recording.

So much has changed since then and this is my reasoning as to why much of the "never seen before" rhetoric is not accurate. When we have the most storms in a season, is it because we had the most or because we just didn't have the satellite technology to identify 3 to 5 storms that started and spun out quickly in the middle of the Atlantic without being spotted and measured by a plane or ship?

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