If a storm is a Category 3, 4 or 5, it is deemed a "major" hurricane due to the potential for "significant loss of life and damage," the National Hurricane Center says. Hurricanes that fall into categories 1 or 2 are still considered dangerous, the center says.

The longstanding hurricane rating system, the Saffir-Simpson Scale, only takes into account sustained wind speeds and not the full devastating impact of a hurricane.

Let's break it down. Big Picture -What It Measures: As the name implies, the current version is strictly a wind scale that rates a hurricane's sustained winds (not gusts) from Category 1 through 5.

Erin, once a Category 5 hurricane over the weekend that more than doubled wind speed to nearly 160 mph, on Monday morning remained on a path to miss landfall of the United States though not without forcing evacuations in North Carolina.

Following a hurricane at a CATEGORY 4, most of an area will be “uninhabitable” for anywhere between weeks or months. CATEGORY 5: This is the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

A major hurricane is classified as a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. This means the storm has sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater.

"The Saffir-Simpson scale is a measure of wind speed. But far more people die from hurricane flooding than from strong winds. Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wilmington as a Category 1 storm.

Klotzbach presented on Tuesday at the National Hurricane Conference where he said pressure correlates better with hurricane damage than wind – which is what the Saffir-Simpson Scale identifies.

The Saffir-Simpson Scale rates hurricanes on winds. The new proposed scale being devloped by Jennifer Collins. professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of South Florida includes ...

Hurricane Erin reached the maximum intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale last Saturday (16), becoming a category 5 storm with winds of up to 260 km/h (161 mph).