You may be familiar with the Saffir-Simpson scale for rating the strength of hurricanes. It is based solely on wind speed and does not include other hazards from tropical systems like flooding rain and storm surge. A scientist at the University of South Florida and her team think the time has come to create a new scale to rate hurricane severity that includes other factors like the amount of rain that is likely to fall and the height of the storm surge that may occur along the coast if a storm makes landfall. This was discussed this week in a Forbes post by UGA professor Dr. Marshall Shepherd. He also provides a history of past attempts to rate hurricane severity and how the Saffir-Simpson scale was developed.
