Hurricane Erin raced from a Category 1 to a Category 5 storm. If Erin keeps ramping up, is there a Category 6?

If a storm is a Category 3, 4 or 5, it is deemed a "major" hurricane due to the potential for "significant loss of life and ...

The longstanding hurricane rating system, the Saffir-Simpson Scale, only takes into account sustained wind speeds and not the ...

Following a hurricane at a CATEGORY 4, most of an area will be “uninhabitable” for anywhere between weeks or months. CATEGORY 5: This is the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

There is no “Category 6” on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale. While a sixth tier has been discussed in hypothetical terms, it is not a real measurement of hurricane severity in 2024.

Let's break it down. Big Picture -What It Measures: As the name implies, the current version is strictly a wind scale that rates a hurricane's sustained winds (not gusts) from Category 1 through 5.

At that point, the NHC uses the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale of intensity to categorize it on a scale of 1-5.

"The Saffir-Simpson scale is a measure of wind speed. But far more people die from hurricane flooding than from strong winds. Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wilmington as a Category 1 storm.

Erin continues to grow in size, trying to restrengthen to a category 3 hurricane before passing to our east. At 11pm, the center of Hurricane Erin was located near latitude 32.8 North, longitude 73.1 ...

Hurricane Erin moves offshore but still threatens East Coast with dangerous surf, rip currents, and tropical winds. This live blog is now closed.