Category 6 is the new hurricane normal. Why scientists say we need to rethink what we know about storms - Human-caused climate change is making major hurricanes like Melissa much stronger, faster and

Hurricane Melissa’s powerful winds and drenching rains devastated Jamaica. But is its wrath a sign that we need a new designation for monster storms?

With hurricane season in full swing, there's a lot of talk from meteorologists about hurricane "categories." What do they mean, and what do they tell us about a storm? It turns out, a hurricane's category is only based on one thing: wind speed. According ...

Jamaica faces damaging winds and heavy rainfall Sunday and Monday that could trigger catastrophic and life-threatening flash floods and landslides.

A University of South Florida researcher and a team from the Netherlands are proposing a new way to measure hurricane severity. Jennifer Collins had been studying evacuation patterns when she saw people would not leave high-risk areas unless the storm was ...

One week after the Category 5 ‘Storm of the Century’ first hit the Caribbean, residents have been left picking up the pieces. Olivia Ireland and Alex Croft report on the sizeable task ahead

Record-breaking Hurricane Melissa has renewed calls to amend the scale used to classify the strength of a hurricane and estimate the potential damage it could inflict when it makes landfall. Some scientists say the over-50-year-old Saffir-Simpson scale might not adequately convey the danger of high-end storms.

The strength is measured by the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which rates hurricanes from Category 1 to 5 based on wind speed.