Hugh
(Senior Storm Chaser)
Wed Sep 21 2005 09:45 PM
Re: Category 5 Hurricane Rtia Moves Westward in the Gulf

Quote:

A little off subject, but i've wondered something and never asked. Why does the scale only go to a cat 5? Can they not mesuare anything higher than 174mph?



There has never been a wind speed measured higher than about 200 I think (Camille was 190 officially, the Labor Day storm was ~200 I think)... it's simply physics - if you don't have winds above a certain level you don't need a scale for them.

Edit: Actually,there is a scale above Cat 5, though. It ranges from F0 to F5, if I'm not mistaken. It's called the Fujitsi(I know I spelled that wrong) scale... and it's used for TORNADOs... which is pretty much what a 200mph hurricane is, a HUGE tornado.


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