[arkady_renko]

I'm with you. We need a 'wind-chill' type of scale that takes into size of system, speed, wind speed, pressure, surge...

[pax_et_bonum]

I'm with you. We need a 'wind-chill' type of scale that takes into size of system, speed, wind speed, pressure, surge...

Add to that an ESP scale which can predict which trees will fall and where they will land or the heavy items which will be blown into buildings, allowing the hurricane force winds to come into those buildings during a time when evacuation is impossible.

A friend of mine died during Alicia when a tree fell.

[dirtboy]

For N'oreasters, they rate them 1-5 by a combination of wind speed and fetch, or the distance the wind blows over open water. Long fetches are why N'oreasters can have weaker winds than hurricanes but put up flooding like a hurricane and waves far worse than hurricanes. For comparison, the 1993 Blizzard was a 3 for flooding and wave action, the 1992 N'oreaster was a 4, and the Perfect Storm of 1991 was a 5.

For large storms like Katrina, Rita and Ike, fetch starts to factor in along with windspeed. Ike is massive with a fetch blowing from the western tip of Cuba all the way into the NE Texas coast. That is a long ways for wave action to develop and to pile up water ahead of the storm.