hi there I'm First Alert meteorologist Cruz Medina this is First Alert weather plus and today we're going to be talking about the tropics but more specifically how are hurricanes classified in other words what gives them the category strength that they have you probably heard of the category 1 2 3 four or five before there's a certain name for that scale and we're going to kind of explore what that means today as we do have some trouble in the tropics if you will so frine which is soon to be a hurricane this is possibly going to landfall as a category 2 when it hits the Louisiana Coastline let's talk about this scale though the wind scale is actually known as the sapper Simpson wind scale and basically each category is given a designation based off the wind speed alone so there's lots of other impacts that come from hurricanes it's not just the wind but that's the one that gives the Hurricanes their specific category so let's explore this scale a little bit and I want you to take a close look at your screen here so category one it's still a dangerous storm it doesn't matter the category there's still going to be impacts and with the category one the damage is usually minimal okay so you still get storm surge the coast is going to be very battered but usually areas Inland unless they're right in the eyewall are not going to be severely damaged however there are other threats with landfalling tropical systems whether it's a tropical depression storm or hurricane you can still get impacts at the coast such as the storm surge obviously freshwater flooding and even tornadoes which we'll talk more about in just a moment let's kick it up a notch here let's go to category two so you can see that this does cause extensive damage this is possibly what Francine could bring to the Louisiana coast so this is a strong storm the winds are going to be strong they're going to be in the range of 990 6 to 110 milph that's what we could see with frine as it comes ashore and so yes you get more impacts With the Wind here but the storm surge is also going to be higher and that's because the winds as the storm is coming ashore especially on the right hand side those will actually get pushed Inland so we'll see that storm surge reaching a little further Inland that is something to be mindful of When Storms make landfall going up another level so we'll go category three now this is what we consider a major hurricane and yes the uh designation there major hurricane is extensive so it shows a big jump in wind speeds the wind speeds here in the range of 111 to 129 so this could bring devastating damage there have been plenty of Category 3 hurricanes major hurricanes that have caused widespread damage along coastlines and even well Inland it really depends on the speed of the storm so if it's a quick mover it doesn't bring as much rain except at the coast but if it's slow moving even in line it can bring bring freshwater flooding now the storm surge here is going to be significant I mean we're talking feet of storm surge at this point and that's because there's a constant push of onshore flow uh with these winds so that's pushing the water inland category four and five those are both going to be major hurricanes as well but you'll notice here the damage designation goes up a step here so this is catastrophic damage there are going to be deaths there's going to be extreme storm surge that reaches well Inland there's going to be extreme wind damage there's going to be extreme flooding and in those outer bands you still have that tornado threat kicking it up to the last level category five hurricane this is the rarest kind we have had Category 5 hurricanes uh impact the US Mainland so it's not like we've never seen it it's just it doesn't happen that often so Category 5 storms these are supposed to be among the strongest wind speeds on Earth I mean really the only thing that has stronger wind speeds than that is going to be you know upper level a significant tornado if you will so an ef4 or five or something of that sort so catastrophic damage I mean this can straight wipe the winds alone wipe homes off of their Foundation the storm surge is tremendous so think about those winds 157 mph plus think about hurricane Michael that was a significant storm that landfall along the Florida Panhandle right around Mexico Beach there was so much Devastation there I mean trees were stripped from their leaves or the leaves were stripped from the trees rather trees were knocked over houses were wiped clean from the Slate storm surge reached miles Inland uh just widespread damage widespread loss of life it was really a sad situation but these are among the strongest storms so now that we've covered the hurricane categories let's talk about storm surge I was mentioning these feet of storm surge come with often the stronger hurricanes so think Category 2 and higher are going to experience significant storm surge and we could see that with frene so these winds they're giving a persistent push of wind on Shore that's pushing the water and not allowing it to retreat so think of these hurricane force winds these are sustained winds with higher gusts but sustained winds think of like a a blow dryer so the wind is constant if the wind is constantly pushing the water it can't Retreat so it just keeps going Inland and Inland and it's going to batter everything in its path including homes businesses and really anything along the coast so the stronger those winds are the higher this water is going to push in and you can see that this could even go to the tops of houses and that's why at the coast you often see houses built on stilts and this is hopefully to minimize the damage that storm surge could do but storm surge is the biggest killer when it comes to landfalling Tropical system so it is something you definitely want to take seriously and thankfully we don't have to worry about that here in the Midstate as as we are not in the coast but we do have to worry about freshwater flooding and we're going to talk more about that here in just a second but that's going to do it for First Alert weather plus if you've got any weather environmental or science related ideas that you're curious to hear more about feel free to shoot me an email or a message on social media let's talk about friending