Timothy Reinhold, engineer of the Institute for Business & Home Safety, and Mark Powell, a meteorologist with the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, want to institute a new system to predict hurricanes’ damage potential. The Saffir-Simpson Scale is the current one which gives a 1 to 5 rating based on wind speed, strength, and surge. The two say that this system can’t handle just how destructive a storm can be by predicting its size and reach.

Reinhold feels that their classification system could have warned Gulf residents of the magnitude of the hurricane before Katrina hit, thereby allowing them better staying/relocation choices.

“We have known for some time that the level of surge and surge-related damage is not well correlated with the maximum wind speeds at landfall.”

Hurricane season officially runs from June 1 to November 30, although the Sub-tropical Storm Andrea occurred May 9. The two are expected to test out their idea this year.