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"gewg_" writes:

from the storms-going-off-the-charts dept.

Live Science reports [livescience.com]

Hurricane Patricia is currently churning in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and weather forecasters are calling it the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Communities in southern Mexico, where the hurricane is expected to make landfall later today (Oct. 23), are already preparing for a "potentially catastrophic" storm.

[...]Hurricane Patricia is a Category 5 storm [livescience.com]--the highest on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale that is used to gauge a storm's intensity--and is expected to have winds of nearly 200 miles per hour (325 km/h) with even higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

[...]Category 5 storms typically have winds of at least 157 mph (252 km/h), but Patricia is special; earlier today, the NHC said Hurricane Patricia is the strongest hurricane on record in the area the center monitors, which includes the Atlantic. (Before Patricia, the strongest hurricane measured in the Western Hemisphere was Wilma in 2005, with top wind speeds of 175 mph, or 282 km/h.)

In the coverage by NPR (formerly National Public Radio), meteorologist Ryan Maue, PhD notes [npr.org]

as a Category 5 storm, Patricia is at the top of the Saffir-Simpson scale. If the categories went higher (as some have suggested in recent years), it would actually be labeled Category 7.

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