Minor Changes To Hurricane Scale

Despite it being Winter technically, tropical air has surged into a majority of Texas and even parts of the Northern Plains. We are close enough to Spring as the equinox will take place on March 20th, which is next Tuesday. Nonetheless, Hurricane season is around the corner, starting on the 1st of June.

These tropical monsters have been known to soak the Brazos Valley with heavy rains. However, there has been an absence of tropical activity since Ike struck the Texas Gulf Coast. Here at KAGS-HD, we will make sure to keep you ahead of the storms.

Anyway, there have been some minor changes to the Saffir-Simpson Scale (hurricane strength index) I want to pass along.

The following image illustrates the current scale:

Category 1 and category 2 hurricanes will remain the same. The changes will be made as of May 15, 2012 to the wind speeds of major hurricanes (category 3 or higher).

Here are the new wind speeds for the following categories:

Category 3: 111-129 mph; 96-112 kn, 178-208 km/hr

Category 4: 130-156 mph, 113-136 kn, 209-251 km/hr

Category 5: 157+ mph, 137+ kn, 252+ km/hr

Very minor corrections will be made, but it will be interesting to see how these how these little differences affect the category of each storm this coming up season.

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