How fast is this monster of our own creation moving?
The wind speed is very important but a very slow hurricane has more time to loosen up infrastructure, trees and land. The longer the exposure to high speed winds the more damage. If the hurricane is strong but fast there is a lot less damage.
Does the Saffir Simpson scale take into account translation speed?
It is moving quickly.
And no, the Saffir-Simpson Scale does not consider the size or translational speed of the hurricane. It solely considers the peak wind speed. It used to also consider central low pressure and storm surge. Neither of those are criteria either.
Michael has a devestating storm surge for the area around Panama City. One of the last drop sonds showed a central low pressure of 919 mb. <920 used to be Cat 5. It also shows sustained winds of 155 mph. >157 mph defines Cat 5 (formerly >156).
Accordingly, Michael is as intense as a storm can get and not be a Cat 5.
As you possibly suggest, it could be worse if the storm were traveling more slowly, or if it was broader.
And those should probably be criteria in assessing the storm character.
Likewise, with warming oceans, even bigger badder storms are now possible. The Safire-Simpson scale is reputedly based on damage. The idea is that Cat 5 storms destroy everything, so there is no need for a Cat 6.
However, if you look at the peak sustained wind speed criteria, the underlying math (original scale) looks something like this...
Cat 1. 74-95 mph
Cat 2. 96-110
Cat 3. 111-131
Cat 4. 131-155
Cat 5. 156-open ended
From category 2 through 5 there is an apparent rule that each Category encompasses a band 5 mph broader that the preceding band with Category 1 being different and broader. So rather than actually being based on damage as purported, the design appears to be mathematical in origin. Extending that, it might instead look like this (with Cat 0a included for historical reasons).
Cat 0a. 74-80 mph
Cat 0b. 81-85
Cat 1. 86-95
Cat 2. 96-110
Cat 3. 111-130
Cat 4. 131-155
Cat 5. 156-185
Cat 6. 186-220
Cat 7. 221-260
Hurricane Allen with 190 mph winds in 1980 was arguably a Category 6 storm.
Other formulations based on other criteria (e.g. Power, scale, rain, surge, duration) might be more useful. And others have been proposed - e.g.
https://medium.com/@pagenotes/evolving-the-saffir-simpson-hurricane-categories-d19d5004d637And the more useful Dvorak scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_techniqueThere tends to be some proportionality between Category and size of a storm. That alone should be reason enough to define at least a Category 6. And there seems to be no reason not to generalize the definition. Higher categories may not ever be possible on Earth. However, as we look to other planets, it would be useful to have a uniform system for evaluating such things.
Sam