TSmith274 wrote:But, as a useful observation, it may be wise to make the categorizing of hurricanes a more complex criteria. Wind damage alone doesn't translate to anything. Hurricanes are much more than wind. Therefore, the category is pretty much meaningless. That's a problem.
Which is the classic problem of abstraction verses reality. An abstract quantitative categorisation does not and can not convey what that category actually means. Given what you’ve personally learned from this direct experience of a massive Cat 3, do you think you could ever convey this reality accurately enough for another person to fully perceive it and properly understand the impact? The fact is the words fail. A terse quantitative classification of wind speed, plus a brief verbal summarisation of associated damage levels does not translate well in people’s minds in advance of the shocking reality.
But even with a more thorough classification and description, each storm, and each landfall geography, and each atmospheric context, is completely unique, as well as more or less unknown. Thus the full effects of measured wind intensities is not adequately predictable. Storms keep proving this to be so. When NOAA forecasts a >25 foot storm surge, firstly, many people won’t believe it, that it’s a likely outcome, and secondly, they don’t know what that is or how it would be expressed, or what it will do. Then the surge turns out to be even higher. People at Mobile clearly were not expecting the depth of the surge they experienced from Katrina and the reporters at the time were shocked by it’s sudden appearance that far East of the eye.
So how can the warning agency provide a more meaningful context regarding the observed numbers when the projections and intensities they do give don’t register well with people? It's doubtful a diversification of classifications would serve to better warn or inform people of what’s closing-in on their location. Maybe if the warning agency provided appropriate video footage montages within it’s own video-based warning productions, showing typical effects and the aftermath scenes of the relevant category of intensity which the storm is currently at, then perhaps people might better grasp the situation? It’s my view that sometimes it’s appropriate to scare the you-know-what out of people—sometimes that is essential. Remember the frank and detailed text description of expected effects the evening before Katrina came ashore? But even this can occasionally backfire and seem like the-boy-who-cried-wolf if the video effect depiction does not develop within the warning area at landfall. One thing clear from this discussion is that people generally don’t know the practical differences between the current five categories, and nor can they estimate sustained wind speeds to save themselves.
I hope someone in the position to do so will commission a detailed documentary regarding what the Saffir-Simpson categories physically actually mean with particular emphasis given to the shattering blows a well-organised genuine Cat 3 can deliver—a common category of storm which is apparently very poorly apprehended by the public.
