Hurricane Milton, a historic superstorm, is pushing the boundaries of known storm intensity with wind gusts exceeding 200 miles per hour. This has led to discussions among meteorologists about the need for a new Category 6 designation for such powerful storms. Noah Bergren, a Florida meteorologist, expressed his astonishment late Monday as Milton reached sustained winds of 180 mph and gusts exceeding 200 mph. He described the storm’s small eye and intensity as “astronomical” and stated that the hurricane was nearing the maximum limit of what Earth’s atmosphere over the ocean could produce.
After maintaining its status as a formidable Category 5 storm for most of Monday, Milton was downgraded to a Category 4 early Tuesday. However, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph, it was just two mph short of a Category 5. The storm is expected to regain strength as it moves towards Florida’s gulf coast, where it is predicted to cause significant damage.
Milton originated in the Gulf of Mexico and quickly escalated from a tropical storm with 60-mph winds on Sunday morning to a deadly Category 5 hurricane with 180-mph winds by Monday. This represents a tripling of power in just 36 hours. If the hurricane’s winds reach 192 mph, it will surpass a threshold that only five storms have achieved since 1980.
The exceptional intensity of Hurricane Milton has led some meteorologists to suggest expanding the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to include a new sixth category. Michael E. Mann, a professor, suggested on Twitter that Milton might have already breached the 192 mph cutoff for a hypothetical Category 6.
Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Jim Kossin, a retired federal scientist and science adviser at the nonprofit First Street Foundation, co-authored a study earlier this year exploring the need for a new hurricane category. They found that several recent storms have already reached this hypothetical Category 6 intensity and predicted that more such storms are likely as the climate continues to warm.
However, not everyone agrees with the need for a new category. Fox Weather meteorologist Mike Rawlins argued that the Saffir-Simpson scale remains the gold standard for measuring hurricanes and that a new category is unnecessary. He noted that some in the meteorological community are calling for a new method of measuring storm intensity, as storm surge and flash flooding often cause more damage than wind alone.
Robert Simpson, co-creator of the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale, stated in 1999 that a sixth category would be irrelevant due to the extreme damage already caused by Category 5 storms. Hurricane Milton is already the fourth-strongest hurricane on record by barometric pressure, a measure of storm intensity, with a central barometric pressure of 897 millibars. Only five hurricanes have recorded pressures below 900 in official records dating back over 170 years.