Hurricane season is approaching but is the current severity scale good enough?
tl;dr: no
Currently, hurricanes severity is measured by either the Saffir-Simpson scale or the Accumulated Cyclone Energy scale. Neither of them really was adequate in the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. Let’s explore why.
First, let’s look at all of the factors a better model would have to have in order to help people understand their risk and to be useful in disaster preparedness. Then we’ll actually build a model with these factors and compare them to some historic hurricanes.
To be transparent, we’re building an inadequate model from scratch knowing it will be inadequate. It’s a useful thought exercise nonetheless and will assist in assessing other hurricane models that are in existence.
A useful measure would provide a risk rating based on wind velocity, size of hurricane, storm surge, wave height and likely volumes of rain due to water vapor in the storm. These factors are interrelated to a greater and lesser degrees, but each has unique risks. Size, surge and rain are higher impact so would be weighted higher. The end system has to be relatively simple to explain, so I’ll stick to a 1–5 scale, but average out and round ratings
