In observance of the opening of Hurricane season, we’ll be examining each day this week various dynamics of hurricanes and hurricane season.  Today, lets appease our basic, visceral side and look at just how nasty a hurricane can get in terms of sheer force.

First, pop quiz.  Do you know what the strongest Atlantic Hurricane in the last 20 years is?  If you were given the options of  Katrina, Ike, Wilma, and Andrew, which would you choose?  It may surprise you to know that its actually Hurricane Wilma from 2005.  She didn’t make landfall as the strongest, but at sea Wilma recorded winds of 185 mph – the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin,  (sources suggest that Hurricane Camille of 1979 was even stronger, making landfall at 190 mph).  For reference, a Category 5 is classified on the Saffir-Simpson scale by winds over 155mp.  If a Category 6 existed, Wilma and Camille would be there.  They never bothered going higher than a 5, because according to Mr. Simpson: “If that extreme wind (156mph+) sustains itself for as much as six seconds on a building it’s going to cause rupturing damages that are serious no matter how well it’s engineered. So I think that it’s immaterial what will happen with winds stronger than 156 miles per hour.”

So how intense could a hurricane theoretically get?  Are there natural limits imposed on size and intensity?  LiveScience addresses this issue in an interesting article.  Apparently, the maximum sustainable winds, calculated by a super smart guy at MIT, is 190 mph.  If, however, the ocean were to continue to warm (oops…it actually appears to be cooling) then those limits could increase.  More on the destructive capabilities of hurricanes tomorrow.