What with Hurricane Sandy having come knocking earlier this Fall, it occurred to me that I ought to say a few words about the National Weather Service's new hurricane scale.

This new scale is called the “Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale," and as I understand things, with this scale the five hurricane wind categories remain, but they're no longer related to storm surge and flooding effects. That is, NOAA has uncoupled the storm surge predictions from the Saffir-Simpson scale. This apparently makes sense because storm surges don't correlate nicely with the size of the hurricane meaning a low category storm can have a surge larger than a storm with a higher category.

Don't fear, storm surge values will still be included in hurricane advisories and statements leaving me this morning with the distinct sense that while there's been a divorce, wind scale and storm surge are still seeing each other socially.

Underway and making way.

--- Fulweiler llc

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