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92 points geox | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.239s | source
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jliptzin ◴[] No.45079394[source]
The average person should not even really pay attention to the category of the storm. That is mostly of scientific concern. It measures the maximum wind speed found at the relatively tiny center of circulation which may or may not have anything to do with how destructive the rest of the storm is hundreds of miles away from the center, as the article points out. That can also depend on things that have nothing to do with the storm itself, such as whether it’s impacting an area with lax building codes that is unprepared for storm surge. People should forget about that scale and focus on what local authorities are saying about the potential danger.
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EE84M3i ◴[] No.45080714[source]
A comparison can be drawn to the scales used for measuring earthquakes. Although the Richter scale is quite common in many parts of the world, in Japan the Shindo scale is primarily used. This measures the local ground shaking intensity, as opposed to the Richter scale which measures the amount of energy released in the quake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_se...

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1. liamwire ◴[] No.45082126[source]
I thought the world had broadly moved onto the moment magnitude scale?