Satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration watched Hurricane Erin as it swirled off of the ...

Hurricanes leave a path of devastation when they hit, and some of the storms can cost astronomical sums of money. There have ...

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 ...

AccuWeather meteorologists are tracking two high-risk areas across the Atlantic basin that will contend to become the next named storm: Tropical Storm Fernand. "There is a high risk of tropical ...

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.