What Do Hurricane Categories Mean?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
it's Christian Sager here. When hurricane season arrives each year
on June one, phrases such as storm surge, wind speed,
and eyewall suddenly become part of the summer lexicon in
the United States. But probably the most important words to

(00:23):
know about a hurricane are those that describe its power,
and those include whether it's a category one or a
category five. The variance between the strengths of these two
storms could mean the difference between life and death. Now,
meteorologists rank hurricanes from one to five based on the
Saffer Simpson scale. The scale is a yardstick that takes

(00:47):
into account a hurricane's wind speed, storm surge, and air pressure,
and the scale begins with a category one, the least
powerful and dangerous hurricane, and then it moves towards its
climax at Category five, the most catastrophic. As the storm
pushes across the ocean, it gathers speed and strength. Low

(01:07):
air pressure forces ocean water into a huge mound near
the eye, which could create a devastating storm surge. When
the wall of water reaches land. The more heat and
moisture hurricane consumes, the more powerful the storm becomes. That's
where the Saffer Simpson scale comes in. The scale was
created when Robert H. Simpson was director of the National

(01:29):
Hurricane Center in nineteen sixty nine, during the time Hurricane
Camille blew through the Caribbean and into the warm waters
of the Gulf of Mexico. Its winds were clocked at
a hundred and ninety miles per hour or three hundred
and six kilometers per hour as it struck Mississippi, and
the official death poll from wind storm surge in rain

(01:53):
was two hundred and fifty six people. In nineteen seventy one,
Herbert S. Saffer was working as an engineer in Florida
preparing a report for the United Nations on building codes
that could withstand the onslaught of high speed winds. He
eventually came up with a table that outlined the damage
to buildings wind can cause at various speeds. He worked

(02:17):
up five categories of hurricanes based on damage each one
could cause. In nineteen seventy two, Simpson took Saffers numbers
and correlated them with storm surge estimates and barometric pressure.
The result was the Saffer Simpson Scale by nineteen seventy five,
the Saffer Simpson scale was in widespread use local, state,

(02:40):
and federal officials, not to mention, the public at large
now had an easy to read and understand chart that
outlined a hurricanes impact. While the Saffer Simpson scale is
a good measuring tool, it doesn't really tell the full
story of a hurricanes impact. Hurricanes pack a lot of
connectic and energy, and as a byproduct, a hurricane's power

(03:03):
increases exponentially from one category to the next as wind
speed increases. A Category five hurricane, for example, is five
hundred times more powerful than a Category one. How does
this relate to property damage Compared to a Category one?
A Category to hurricane can generate seven times the amount

(03:25):
of damage, while a Category five storm can generate a
hundred and forty four times the amount of destruction. Today's
episode was written by John Paritano and produced by Dylan Fagan.
For more on this and other topics, please visit us
at how stuff works dot com. Today's episode was written

(03:51):
by Jescelyn Shields, produced by Dylan Fagan, and For more
on this and other topics, please visit us at how
stuff works dot com.