A study published in early February argued that meteorologists and related scientists need to update the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to include a Category 6 storm, but not everyone is convinced.
Barely six months after the idea of a Cat. 6 hurricane went viral online, a group of scientists are now trying to update the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to include its designation. At the time of writing, the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale only goes from Cat. 1 to 5, with a Cat. 5 hurricane being any of these events with a sustained wind speed of 157 mph or more and no limits on the level of damage, according to a study published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, a scientific journal.
The open-ended nature of the Cat. 5 level of the Saffir-Simpson scale is what seems to be causing the most controversy. The study authors described it as a “weakness of the scale, particularly considering that the destructive potential of the wind increases exponentially.” Therefore, a hypothetical Cat. 6 would encompass those storms that seem to growing more intense in terms of wind speed, “and will continue to do so as the climate continues to warm,” the study authors noted.
Similar claims were made by Scientific American in 2011, but from the perspective that a Cat. 6 hadn’t happened yet. The most recent study argues that multiple hurricanes have reached a Cat. 6 level. Yet not everyone is convinced, AccuWeather noted.
America Gets Slammed With Super Storm, So People Are Wondering: Are Category 6 Hurricanes Possible? | @DailyCaller https://t.co/mIiQPRNYGI
— KAY SMYTHE (@KaySmythe) August 21, 2023
“We do not see the need for the addition of a Category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson scale because experience shows that for Category 5 storms, the damage to most structures is catastrophic, with many buildings destroyed in a landfalling Category 5 hurricane, such as Hurricane Michael,” AccuWeather meteorologist Jon Porter stated. “It is not evident how having an additional category on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale would improve preparation or decisions.”
Porter seems half-correct in his analysis: Obviously, there’s no evidence on how an additional category would “improve preparation or decisions” because it hasn’t been done yet. This is the scientific equivalent of saying “there are no aliens in space” when our species literally hasn’t been to enough space to make this claim — it’s sweeping, and ultimately doesn’t mean anything scientifically.
When you control for the potential social capital of introducing a Cat 6., Occam’s Razor implies that people would actually prepare more if they believed they were facing an imminent, deadly threat, potentially unlike anything they’d seen before. But then again, humans are weird animals, and we behave irrationally on a fairly regular basis.
And since most people have no meaningful relationship with the natural world, changing the scale might not do a darn thing. (RELATED: Hurricane Lee Confusion Spreads Among Meteorologists. How Worried Should We Be?)
The only way to figure out whether we need a Cat. 6 or not is to keep doing the research. Shutting the idea down before it’s even been able to be explored, as Porter seems to suggest, is not the scientific method.