Photo by NASA via Getty Images
Many residents are wondering if Hurricane Milton will become a “Category 6” storm. Milton was declared a deadly Category 5 at 12:00 PM on Monday, October 7, by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), going past predictions that meteorologists made over the weekend as the storm rapidly intensified in the Gulf more than they thought it would. Within 18 hours, Milton went from a Category 1 to a Category 5.
Could Hurricane Milton reach ‘Category 6’?
Technically, no hurricane could ever be “Category 6” because that category does not exist in the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHS). However, looking at how the scaling works in a certain way suggests that Hurricane Milton would have reached “Category 6” status if it existed.
As noted by ABC News, the categories for hurricanes differ “in roughly 20 mph increments.” Since a Category 5 hurricane is officially defined by having over 157 mph sustained winds, a Category 6 “would be greater than 175 or 180 mph.” At 1:36 PM ET, the NHC announced on X (formerly Twitter) that Milton had “explosively” intensified with 175 mph winds, while storm chaser Colin McCarthy revealed on X at 5:16 pm ET. that it had reached 180 mph winds. These measurements would put Hurricane Milton within this theorized range of a “Category 6” hurricane
Meanwhile, other climate scientists believe that a “Category 6” storm should be introduced into the SSHS. In a 2018 article by The Guardian, climatologist Michael Mann said that the current scale is becoming more and more outdated. He believes that a six on the scale “would be a better description for the strength of 200 mph storms, and it would also better communicate the well-established finding now that climate change is making the strongest storms even stronger.”
Mann also points out that the SSHS model, which was developed in 1971, considers a category five hurricane to lead “to essentially total destruction of human infrastructure.” Over the last 50 years, though, construction has become sturdier, so he believes that the introduction of a “Category 6” makes sense.
[Image Credit: Jeff Masters, Scientific American]
A research paper in 2024 similarly proposes a “Category 6” to have over 192 mph winds. It notes that a number of recent storms “have already reached [its] hypothetical category 6 wind speeds,” which includes Hurricane Patricia in 2015 and Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
Beyond that, former NOAA Hurricane Hunter Jeff Masters stated in a 2019 Scientific American opinion piece that he believes a Category 6 and even a Category 7 should be introduced. According to the graph above, he proposes that a Category 7 hurricane would have over 210 mph winds. Doing so would “call attention to this new breed of ultra-intense catastrophic hurricanes that will likely grow increasingly common in the coming decades.”
Originally reported by Nicholas Tan on Mandatory
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