This is what I hate about the category system - it's entirely wind based and while that's important, rainfall and direction of wind (for coasts) is what's most important. Cat 2 can be worse than Cat5 also because they move slower so more inches of rain per hour.
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Interestingly, the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF) used for tornadoes takes into account damage as well as wind speed. Maybe something like that would be more appropriate for hurricanes. An 'enhanced' saffir-simpson scale?
It already does. There's no problem with the system, for people that understand what it is meant to describe. Rainfall isn't a part of that.
The best way to describe rainfall is by... giving the rates and cumulative amount of rainfall. Flash flood warnings exist when excessive rain causes... flash flooding.
As for direction: hurricanes are circles. Everyone knows the east eyewall is the worst part.
Idk what else you'd want to incorporate/describe that's useful. Except that people that haven't been through bad hurricanes always think what they experience must be worse than the category of the storm.
Eg: Sandy not being hurricane strength when it came ashore, so they made up the term "Superstorm Sandy" because "just" tropical storm somehow lessons their experience.
>It already does. There's no problem with the system, for people that understand what it is meant to describe. Rainfall isn't a part of that.
I wasn't necessarily saying there was a problem with the system. However, when these terms/systems are used in the primary means of communicating dangers to the public (mass media: tv, radio, web) then they are doing a disservice. For a layman, the only difference between a cat 4 and a cat 5 hurricane is that the cat 5 is worse. Yet, for different areas, the category doesn't actually speak of the dangers. And, you risk people thinking "oh, I was in a category 4 before" and not realizing the potential of a 'lower' storm depending on the conditions.
I think the recent flooding in NY from the remnants of Hurricane Ida speak to that.