Hurricanes are becoming deadlier as a result of climate change, and scientists are proposing that we should add another category to the scale used to measure storm intensity. Hurricanes are classified by categories one through five on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, but a recent study says a Category 6 is needed now that storms are intensifying and reaching wind speeds over 192 miles per hour.
The study comes from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Its authors argue that our current scale’s Category 5 is no longer adequate to convey the destructive potential of storms such as Hurricane Patricia, which saw wind speeds of up to 215 mph in the Gulf of Mexico. Category 5 begins at 157 mph, leaving a 58 mph gap between the start of Category 5 and some recent storms, which is too great of a difference
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