Hurricane Florence is still going to bruise the coastal mid-Atlantic despite the fact that it has a “2” alongside her name instead of a “4.” The storm was downgraded on its category status but that only captures some of the ways that Florence can hurt you. When it comes to hurricanes, there are still plenty of metrics to measure how dangerous a storm is and Florence has more than her fair share..
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It’s not just the wind speed: The Saffir-Simpson scale used to categorize hurricanes measures wind speed. Slower wind speeds certainly reduce Florence’s potential for damage but oftentimes the most dangerous part of a hurricane isn’t the winds—it’s the storm surge.