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"multiple storms have already spilled over into the hypothetical category 6" If they do go this route, I'd like it if they future-proofed it and include catego
by swagmoose 3y ago
"multiple storms have already spilled over into the hypothetical category 6"
If they do go this route, I'd like it if they future-proofed it and include categories 6-10. Seems inevitable we're gonna see the first category 7 in the next 5-10 years.
- anatnom 3y agoConfusingly, the paper[0] cited by this article seems undecided on this front. Figure 1A of the paper puts Hurricane Patricia (2015) into hypothetical category 7, but the "current and proposed categories" in Table 1 stops at declaring category 6 wind speed > 86 m/s (or 192mph, 167 knots, 309 km/h), and category 7 doesn't make an appearance elsewhere in the paper. I was really hoping to find an authoritative listing of the strongest storms, but it is missing in both the linked article and the underlying paper. The paper itself uses data from International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship, which has a confusing website. As a non-expert, the website's top windspeed[1] category lists the following storms with maximum wind speeds of >167 knots (category 6 in the proposed scheme): 213kt - 1958 IDA 194kt - 1958 GRACE, 1959 JOAN, 1959 DINAH, 1961 NANCY, 1964 SALLY 185kt - 2015 PATRICIA 184kt - 1961 VIOLET 180kt - 1955 RUTH 178kt - 1955 JANET, 174kt - 1951 MARGE, 1953 NINA, 1956 WANDA, 1957 VIRGINIA, 1957 HESTER, 1957 KIT, 1957 LOLA, 1959 VERA, 1959 CHARLOTTE, 1966 KIT 170kt - 1964 OPAL, 2013 HAIYAN, 2016 MERANTI, 2020 GONI, 2021 SURIGAE I don't see any explanation for why there were so many fantastically powerful storms in the 1950s-60s. Perhaps the older data is of dubious quality? [0] https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121#t01 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121#t01 [1] https://ncics.org/ibtracs/index.php?name=browse-wind#210 https://ncics.org/ibtracs/index.php?name=browse-wind#210
- scythe 3y agoWikipedia gives Typhoon Ida (not to be confused with various hurricanes named Ida) a wind speed of "only" 175 knots (325 kph; 202 mph) which accounts for the largest outlier in the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Ida_(1958) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Ida_(1958)
- anatnom 3y agoConfusingly, that wikipedia page cites the same IBTrACS system that I referred to, and in that page[0] the max intensity is listed at 213 knots. The data shows that the 213 knot speed was seen for measurements across twelve hours on 1958-09-24. [0] https://ncics.org/ibtracs/index.php?name=v04r00-1958263N13148 https://ncics.org/ibtracs/index.php?name=v04r00-1958263N1314...
- sudenmorsian 3y agoYou are looking at the data for the CMA (China Meteorological Agency). The official data center for the Western Pacific according to the World Meteorological Agency is the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA/Tokyo), but the IBTrACS dataset does not have wind speeds from them for 1958. The Wikipedia article is sourcing data from the JTWC (Joint Typhoon Warning Center), the US wind column for 1-minute sustained wind speeds. In general, the Wikipedia convention is to include wind speed data from the JMA and JTWC when available.
- dwd 3y agoThere is some research regarding an increase in Saharan dust storms that retards hurricane development in the Eastern Atlantic. Apparently this is still trending upwards and has resulted in fewer hurricanes forming over the last few decades.
- Animats 3y agoThe scale is somewhat arbitrary (plot the points) but category 7 would start somewhere around 225MPH. Highest ever recorded is 215MPH, so category 7 is worth having in reserve.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoIda/Kanogawa was 245 mph/213 knot peak. https://ncics.org/ibtracs/index.php?name=v04r00-1958263N13148 https://ncics.org/ibtracs/index.php?name=v04r00-1958263N1314...
- zamadatix 3y agoSaffir–Simpson is based on sustained, not peak.
- sdenton4 3y agoSet Category 10 at the speed of light, then work backwards...
- thfuran 3y agoWell that's easy. The meteorologists can remember that category number = 10 v' / c, where v' is the maximum median windspeed over a one hundred acre convex region, and all anyone else needs to know is that every storm is cat 0.
- richardw 3y agoAgree, need to do this properly. What's a fair cap in our solar system? "Neptune’s winds are the fastest in the solar system, reaching 1,600 miles per hour!" What category is that? https://scijinks.gov/planetary-weather/#:~:text=Neptune%27s%20winds%20are%20the%20fastest,could%20swallow%20the%20whole%20Earth https://scijinks.gov/planetary-weather/#:~:text=Neptune%27s%....
- BlueTemplar 3y agoI would guess that atmospheric pressure is going to matter a lot for the expected "damage", so it would not make sense in places where it's wildly different ?
- _tom_ 3y agoWhy should we "create" categories. There should be an algorithm for determining level. Input 1000 miles an hour, you get a category. Earthquakes don't have an upper limit. It's just a function of energy.
- TylerE 3y agoEarthquakes are sort of naturally limited though. A 9.0 is going to be catastrophic no matter what, and while I’m not saying a 10 couldn’t happen it would probably be something like once in a billion year event.
- BeefWellington 3y ago10.0 is firmly in "if it happens nobody's gonna be around to care what it's designated" territory I think. There's a practical point at which the death tolls are going to be sufficiently high that the number probably shouldn't matter. Though in tornadoes there definitely are EF-4 designated twisters that are hotly contested online as being truly EF-5; often that's down to where damage occurs in the lifetime of a tornado though and it being difficult to prove windspeeds when a system is moving through, e.g.: trailer park vs an industrial park.
- TylerE 3y agoI don't think it's quite as cut and dried as that. A 9.5 hit Chile about 60 years ago, and about 95% of the most directly hit town survived. Which is not to minimize it - there were thousands of fatalities - but it was human scale tragedy, not apocalypse.
- ewhanley 3y agoAn estimate of the upper limit of an earthquake is approximately 10. It's a function of max rock strength.
- selectodude 3y agoIt’s actually a function of energy released. The earthquake can get bigger if the fault slip is larger. A magnitude 12 quake is technically possible but requires an entire hemisphere to slip 500 meters. There’s a really interesting paper that takes the moment magnitude scale to its logical extremes. PDF warning: https://www.fujipress.jp/main/wp-content/themes/Fujipress/pdf_subscribed.php https://www.fujipress.jp/main/wp-content/themes/Fujipress/pd...
- bugbuddy 3y agoNot necessarily because there may not be any difference between a wind speed of 350mph and 400mph wind in term of destructive power. Both may simply be able to strip the land bare and deliver the everything above it many miles away as well as temporarily moving parts of the sea miles inland.
- sillywalk 3y agoBy the time storms of 7+ come that level become commonplace, I doubt there will be people track and name them.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ComplexSystems 3y agoWhile that is probably most sensible, it doesn't seem like a lot of fun. Instead, I recommend we call a new global conference, every few years, to discuss the addition of each individual natural number to the Saffir-Simpson scale.
- RugnirViking 3y agoThat does sound fun! Is the idea to progress sequentially? or do we consider the proposal of 13 before 7 if there is enough support to do so?