Tropical Storms - Roundup of Tropical Storms:
In the Western Pacific Ocean: Tropical Depression 05w (Five), located approximately 138 nm southeast of Da Nang, Vietnam, is tracking northward at 10 knots.
Hurricane Season 2018: Experts Call For New Category 6
A spate of record-breaking storms has spurred a call for expanding the hurricane scale for better warnings that could save lives.
As the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season begins, scientists are worried that U.S. coastal communities could face more super storms with winds, storm surges and rainfall so intense that current warning categories don't fully capture the threat.
A new review of global data on hurricanes shows that since 1980, the number of storms with winds stronger than 200 kilometers per hour (124 mph, or a strong Category 3) have doubled, and those with winds stronger than 250 kilometers per hour (155 mph) have tripled.
Storms are also intensifying more quickly, with a greater chance they will drop record amounts of rain, especially if they stall out when they hit land, as Hurricane Harvey did in Houston last year.
Scientists advocate for adding a new Category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to describe the extremely powerful super storms seen in recent years—storms that can be fueled by global warming.
The current intensity scale doesn't capture the fact that a 10 mph increase in sustained wind speeds ups the damage potential by 20 percent. That's not a subtle effect. It's one that we can see. Based on the spacing of Categories 1-5, there should be a Category 6 approaching peak winds of 190 mph, they said.
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