The way hurricanes are categorized may mislead the public to their dangers

Hurricanes are classified according to their maximum sustained wind speed

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a rating system that organizes hurricanes into one of five categories. Categories three and higher are classified as major hurricanes, but all categories can produce deadly storm surges and rain-induced floods.

Unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are not ranked based on measured wind speed

Technological limitations prevent direct measurements of wind speeds where tornadoes make contact with the ground. Instead, the Enhanced Fujita scale assigns a rating with a range of speeds based on how much damage a tornado caused to various types of structures. These types are more extensive than the original Fujita scale.

Average hurricane intensity, not frequency, has increased over the past century

While the total number of tropical cyclones globally each year has not significantly shifted since 1920, a greater proportion of them are major, defined as category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The increased energy present in a warmer climate may be contributing to higher intensification rates.

Storm surges, not winds, are the leading cause of hurricane-related fatalities

A storm surge is an abnormal rise in water levels generated by a storm that exceeds predicted tides. It is particularly dangerous in coastal regions, where it can generate extreme flooding well before the hurricane makes landfall.

Rapid intensification can cause hurricanes to increase by two categories in 24 hours

Rapid intensification is a 35 mph or more increase in a hurricane's sustained wind speed within 24 hours. The phenomenon is expected to become more common, resulting in more storms becoming life-threatening faster than people can modify their preparations for the increased intensity.

See the lists of the worst hurricanes in the US through 2024

Several metrics, including wind speed, pressure, damage costs, and casualties, may be used to define the most devastating hurricanes. This page provides the top 10 hurricanes across each of these sorting methods.

How does climate change impact hurricanes?

Statistical relationships between sea surface temperature and hurricanes, analysis of century-scale Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane records, analysis of other observed Atlantic hurricane metrics, and more.

How do hurricanes form?

Tropical cyclones, also called hurricanes and typhoons, cause catastrophic damage when they strike land. This four-minute video explores the life cycle of cyclones—how atmospheric conditions, ocean temperatures, and the Earth’s rotation combine to create them, and how they are driven by winds and eventually weaken after moving over land.

Tropical cyclones are called hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones around the world

Tropical cyclones are named differently based on their region of origin due to historical traditions and cultural importance. These storms are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and northeast Pacific oceans, cyclones in the southwest Pacific and Indian oceans, and typhoons in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

Hurricanes may kill 300 times more people than officially reported

A recent study suggests that, since 1930, more than 3.5 million people have died due to hurricanes. This incorporates the long-term effects of storms on people's health and economic well-being, contributing to thousands of premature deaths each year.

The cone of uncertainty predicts where a hurricane's center can potentially travel

A common misconception is that regions beyond the cone are safe, but the spread does not depict the full reach of a cyclone's wind, rain, or storm surges. The cone is not built from real-time storm data but is an average forecast error from the past five years.

A list of common questions and answers about hurricanes from NOAA

This FAQ answers many questions hurricane researchers at NOAA have received, sorted by category. The answers provide insights into hurricane classification and naming, forecasting their movement and growth, and tips for preparing ahead of landfall.

Watch how scientists learn about hurricanes by flying into them

A specialized fleet of Air Force planes is built to fly into hurricanes and gather critical data from inside the storm. Beyond radar and microwave sensors, the planes are equipped with dropsondes—small instruments dropped into storms to measure pressure, temperature, and wind.

Hurricanes spin due to differences in air and ground speed as they move across Earth

The movement of an object across latitudes causes it to take a curved trajectory because its speed no longer matches that of the ground beneath it. This phenomenon, called the Coriolis effect, explains why hurricanes spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

Hurricane conditions are created in a University of Miami wind-wave tank

The SUrge-STructure-Atmosphere INteraction Wind Wave Laboratory contains a 38,000-gallon wave pool connected to a wind tunnel that can generate air currents of up to 155 mph. SUSTAIN allows scientists to study how the atmosphere interacts with the ocean in extreme weather.

Tropical cyclone formation require warm water and limited vertical wind shear

Ocean temperatures above 27 degrees Celsius fuel rising, moist air, which releases energy through heat as water vapor condenses into clouds. Significant changes in wind speed with height can spread out these upflows, preventing the eventual formation of a central column known as the eye.

Small elevation differences drastically protect homes in hurricanes

The construction of seaside homes has long involved building residences on elevated stilts, but this feature adds costs—and some elevated homes still fail. Explore the engineering behind the ideal height of a hurricane-proof building.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

The ingredients that make up severe weather

A seven-minute video illustrating how a storm is made. These factors—moisture, instability, lift, and shear—are explained through a series of data sets and creative, descriptive diagrams.

Explore the effects of tornadoes of different scales

In this simulation, users can adjust the tornado's diameter and rotation speed to see its impact as it passes through a series of trees and a one-story home.

The Köppen-Geiger system divides Earth’s climate into five main categories

This classification system, developed by a German-Russian botanist and a German climatologist, results from differences in the intensity of solar radiation and rainfall in different parts of the world. Each category is further divided into multiple coded zones.

The Richter scale was only intended to quantify Southern California earthquakes

The scale, designed to rate the energy of the largest seismic waves released by an earthquake, was calibrated to the region’s crust and mantle properties. Since the 1970s, seismologists have instead used the moment magnitude scale, which considers all waves of released energy.

Violent storms and crushing pressure await those inside Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

As seen from space, Jupiter’s most striking feature is an anticyclone 30% larger than Earth, with winds twice the speed of Category 5 hurricanes. The descent into the storm brings enough pressure to strip atoms of their electrons.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Scientists quantify how far from the poles auroras will be visible using the G-scale

The Geomagnetic Storm scale indicates the expected severity of the deformation of Earth's magnetic field based on the amount of energy injected by the solar wind. Solar activity is monitored using various satellites to forecast these storms, which can also be used to anticipate damage and disruption to power systems, radio communications, and satellite navigation.

Understanding turbulence, which is characterized by growing chaos at multiple scales

As energy is lost in fluids undergoing turbulent, non-linear flow, particles will collectively form eddies, or whirlpools, of various sizes that mix together. The energy cascade of larger eddies becoming smaller ones before dissipating completely varies based on the initial conditions of the fluid, a characteristic feature of chaotic systems.

Watch a tsunami warning system provide real-time alerts across the Pacific

This visualization of the GUARDIAN monitoring software depicts its detection and transmission of natural hazard signals from the magnitude 8.8 Kamchatka Peninsula earthquake on July 29, 2025. The first detections occurred 32 minutes before the earliest tidal impacts, demonstrating the system's potential to save lives by expanding response time windows.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Some renewable energy sources may weaken the resiliency of electric grids by removing outage buffers provided by coal- and natural gas-fired plants, which provide the system with more time to find a new power source if a plant goes down.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

Doctors differentiate between a phobia and fear by asking patients whether their fear interferes with their day-to-day activities.

Poison ivy will likely become both larger and more resilient due to climate change.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.