The Saffir-Simpson scale was originally created to gauge how
strong a hurricane is. Back in 1969, they didn't have anything and so they just
created a simple 1 through 5 scale based on wind. So that's what we used today.
I think that we have seen with Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Florence that
damage from a hurricane is more than just wind. It also has to do with flooding,
and it also has to do with storm surge.
And that scale does not measure that at all.
With the ice melting and the sea level rising – on top of more rain, more larger
storms with stronger winds – I think that we are going to see a lot more storms
like Harvey and Florence that have strong wind speeds but will carry a lot of precipitation.
I think that there are two kinds of hurricanes. There are really
strong, powerful ones that rip through the city and it looks like a tornado
just damaged everything. And then there's this other type of storm –
that we're starting to see more of – that's a slow, meandering storm that just kind of
lingers and drops lots of rain and it's large. And that's the kind of storm that
the Saffir-Simpson scale does not accurately describe.
We've relied so much on the scale that it's even taken away the power of a category 1.
It's still a hurricane! It's still a hurricane.
But we've trained and conditioned the public to think that a one is not so bad and only a five is
worth getting out of town for. And that's the problem.
I think that all scientists together need to come up with a better solution,
and I think that can only happen with social scientists connecting with meteorological scientists,
coming together and figuring out how can we communicate to the public properly.