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What does the Saffir Simpson Scale describe FEMA?

What does the Saffir Simpson Scale describe FEMA?

Hurricanes with sustained winds of at least 74 mph are assigned a category using the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The scale separates hurricanes into five categories based on wind speed and is used to estimate potential property damage.

What do we use the Saffir Simpson Scale for?

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale rates a hurricane’s strength from one to five. A hurricane’s sustained wind speed determines a hurricane’s category. This helps estimate potential property damage along a hurricane’s path.

What is the Saffir Simpson scale for kids?

This scale is used to classify tropical storms that have reached sustained hurricane strength winds. This scale is only used for hurricanes that form in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. The Saffir-Simpson scale has five categories for rating a hurricane’s strength.

What is the Saffir Simpson scale and who created it?

The scale was developed in 1971 by civil engineer Herbert Saffir and meteorologist Robert Simpson, who at the time was director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).

What are 4 facts about the Saffir-Simpson Scale?

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale rates hurricanes from category 1 through category 5 in order of increasing intensity. Each intensity category specifies the range of conditions of four criteria: barometric (central) pressure, wind speed, storm surge, and damage potential.

What millibars is a hurricane?

Tropical low pressure systems are classified as hurricanes when their pressure is 980 millibars or lower, and sustained wind speeds are greater than 118 kilometers per hour.

What are the problems with the Saffir-Simpson Scale?

A Problem with the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale Because storm surge values are highly dependent on the slope of the continental shelf in the landfall region, wind speed is the determining factor in the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale (National Weather Service 2009a). Yet, hurricanes are much more than wind events.

What does the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale describe?

What does the Saffir Simpson Scale describe? The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is a 1-5 rating based on the hurricane’s present intensity. This hurricane scale is used to give an estimate of the potential property damage and flooding expected along the coast from a hurricane landfall.

Which is the determining factor in the Saffir Simpson scale?

Hurricane Ike near the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. NASA image. Because storm surge values are highly dependent on the slope of the continental shelf in the landfall region, wind speed is the determining factor in the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale ( National Weather Service 2009a ). Yet, hurricanes are much more than wind events.

Why do they use 5 knot increments on the Saffir-Simpson scale?

Although the scale shows wind speeds in continuous speed ranges, the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center assign tropical cyclone intensities in 5-knot (kn) increments (e.g., 100, 105, 100, 115 kn, etc.) because of the inherent uncertainty in estimating the strength of tropical cyclones.

Who are the members of the Saffir-Simpson team?

The Saffir-Simpson Team (Timothy Schott, Chris Landsea, Gene Hafele, Jeffrey Lorens, Arthur Taylor, Harvey Thurm, Bill Ward, Mark Willis, and Walt Zaleski) Updated 2 January 2019 to include central North Pacific examples The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a 1 to 5 categorization based on the hurricane’s intensity at the indicated time.

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