AccuWeather meteorologists are tracking two high-risk areas across the Atlantic basin that will contend to become the next ...

Hurricane Erin raced from a Category 1 to a Category 5 storm. If Erin keeps ramping up, is there a Category 6?

If a storm is a Category 3, 4 or 5, it is deemed a "major" hurricane due to the potential for "significant loss of life and ...

Hurricane Erin is heading away from the United States, but heavy seas, crushing surf and strong rip currents will pose ...

Hurricane Erin moves offshore but still threatens East Coast with dangerous surf, rip currents, and tropical winds. This live blog is now closed.

The longstanding hurricane rating system, the Saffir-Simpson Scale, only takes into account sustained wind speeds and not the ...

Following a hurricane at a CATEGORY 4, most of an area will be “uninhabitable” for anywhere between weeks or months. CATEGORY 5: This is the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

Let's break it down. Big Picture -What It Measures: As the name implies, the current version is strictly a wind scale that rates a hurricane's sustained winds (not gusts) from Category 1 through 5.

At that point, the NHC uses the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale of intensity to categorize it on a scale of 1-5.

"The Saffir-Simpson scale is a measure of wind speed. But far more people die from hurricane flooding than from strong winds. Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wilmington as a Category 1 storm.