The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
The news about hurricanes always starts by telling you what category the storm falls into, and that category is decided by the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. A simple scale that divides the storms into five categories based on the strength their wind is packing. Hurricanes also carry rain, thunder and lightning, but this scale isn’t concerned with taking that into account. The fact that the scale isn’t all encompassing often leads to criticism, but it is still widely adopted and used to forecast hurricanes.