Is a Category 6 hurricane possible? Milton gets people talking

Milton's rise from a Category 2 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane has left people wondering whether the hurricane could strengthen even further into a Category 6 hurricane.

Milton's rise from a Category 2 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in just a few hours has left people wondering whether the massive storm could potentially become a Category 6 hurricane.

The hurricane, which was heading toward the Gulf of Mexico, grew very strong very quickly on Monday and exploded from a tropical storm at 60 miles per hour to a massive Category 5 hurricane at 180 miles per hour on Sunday morning – a staggering increase of 130 miles per hour in 36 hours.

The fast-developing hurricane, which shows no signs of stopping, will not technically be a Category 6 because that category does not currently exist. But it could soon reach the level of a hypothetical Category 6. Experts have debated and sparked controversy over whether the National Hurricane Center's long-used scale for classifying hurricane wind speeds from Category 1 to 5 may need an overhaul.

Milton is already in rarefied air, reaching wind speeds of more than 156 miles per hour, making it a Category 5. But if it reaches wind speeds of 192 miles per hour, it will exceed a threshold that only five hurricanes and typhoons have reached since 1980, according to Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Jim Kossin, a retired federal scientist and science adviser the nonprofit First Street Foundation.

Live updates Hurricane Milton is getting “explosively” stronger with winds of 180 miles per hour

The pair wrote a study examining whether the extreme storms could form the basis for designation as a Category 6 hurricane. All five storms occurred in the last decade.

Scientists say some of the more intense cyclones are being boosted by record-warm waters in the world's oceans, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and parts of Southeast Asia and the Philippines.

Kossin and Wehner said they were not suggesting adding a Category 6 to the wind scale but were trying to “stimulate broader discussions” about communicating the growing risks in a warming world.

Other weather experts hope wind speed categories will be de-emphasized because they do not adequately reflect a hurricane's broader potential impacts, such as storm surges and inland flooding. The worst of Helene's damage came as the storm reached the Carolinas and had already been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

What is the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale?

The hurricane center has used the well-known scale with wind speed ranges for each of the five categories since the 1970s. The minimum threshold for Category 5 winds is 157 miles per hour.

The scale, designed by engineer Herbert Saffir and adjusted by the center's former director Robert Simpson, stops at Category 5 because winds that strong would “cause serious breakage damage, no matter how good the construction,” Simpson said in a 1999 interview.

Indefinite Category 5 describes anything from “a nominal Category 5 to infinity,” Kossin said. “This is becoming increasingly inadequate over time as climate change creates more and more of these unprecedented intensities.”

More: “Category 5” was considered the worst hurricane. There's something scarier, a study says.

Milton's rise from a Category 2 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane has left people wondering whether the hurricane could strengthen even further into a Category 6 hurricane.

What is the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale?

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