Science Source

Surface Pressure a More Skillful Predictor of Normalized Hurricane Damage than Maximum Sustained Wind

Finds that minimum sea level pressure is more easily quantified than maximum sustained wind, and it shows a stronger relationship with hurricane risk for the continental United States
Analyzes the relationship between normalized historical damage caused by continental United States (CONUS) landfalling hurricanes from 1900-2018 with both maximum sustained wind speed (Vmax) and minimum sea level pressure (MSLP)
Finds that MSLP has served as a much better predictor of hurricane damage in recent years than Vmax, with large hurricanes such as Ike (2008) and Sandy (2012) causing much more damage than anticipated from their SSHWS ranking