Scientists are suggesting the need for a sixth category of hurricanes as the world warms and the intensity of these storms continues to increase. The current classification system of hurricanes being categorized on a scale of one to five is no longer sufficient to capture the destructive potential of these storms. Researchers Michael Wehner and James Kossin propose the addition of a sixth category based on weather models and observations from the past four decades.
Category 5 hurricanes have no upper limit on the Saffir–Simpson intensity scale, with wind speeds exceeding about 70 meters per second causing catastrophic destruction. Storms like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Maria in 2017, both classified as Category 5 hurricanes, have caused significant devastation and loss of life. However, over the past four decades, there has been an increase in the number of Category 5 hurricanes, with more than half occurring in the last 17 years. The most destructive storms have occurred in the last nine years, with wind speeds exceeding 80 meters per second in some cases. These storms have caused widespread destruction and loss of life, highlighting the need for an additional category to capture their intensity.
Storms like Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 and Patricia in Mexico in 2015 have demonstrated the devastating impact of Category 5 hurricanes. The proposal for a new category is based on the observation that these storms have already crossed