# Talk:Tropical cyclone intensity scales

I felt that the Australian System should have their own colours. I decided to have a play around and this is what i came up with. Tell me what you think.

--Seddon69 17:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you still here? Because if you are, I think it's a great idea! 116.251.175.52 (talk) 06:10, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

No. Just no. We don't particularly need this at all.
You tried your best, nonetheless.
~ AC5230 (talk) 03:25, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

According to all sources about the Beaufort scale (for instance https://www.rmets.org/weather-and-climate/observing/beaufort-scale), the scale is off in the Tropical cyclone classifications table. This should be the correct table:

As can be seen there is an overlap between a category 1 hurricane (saffir simpson scale) and 11 beaufort.
They are wrong because the beaufort scale corresponds to the 10-minute wind speed. Currently in the table the 1-minute wind speed is used to assign the beaufort scale. The 10-minute beaufort scale should be used.

If the windspeed weakens in tropical storm,what will be it's new category? 49.145.54.151 (talk) 23:44, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I've noticed that the scale coloring has changed. What happened? If there's already something about this, I'd liked to know. Thanks. Mobius Gerig (talk) 04:03, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi, @Mobius Gerig, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather § RfC: Changing the color scheme for storm colors to make it more accessible, and the new scale's ensuing criticism at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather § Comments. Chlod (say hi!) 14:43, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

FYI Template:Tropical cyclone classification (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for discussion at TfD. See the consensus-seeking discussion -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 14:35, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Why 'Comparision across basins' section is deleted?? 116.73.134.216 (talk) 17:31, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The section was deleted in a discussion as after numerous complaints, it was felt that the data could not be made, to be as accurate as it needed to be.Jason Rees (talk) 22:35, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

According to the latest BoM update for a system (archived link), the system was a tropical low with sustained winds of 65 km/h. Per the scale in the article, that would be a category 1 cyclone, however, BoM marks it still as a “Tropical Low”. Scale is inaccurate per BoM. Elijahandskip (talk) 07:05, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

@Elijahandskip: You clearly have not read Australian region tropical cyclone which says "Within this region a tropical disturbance is classified as a tropical cyclone when it has 10-minute sustained wind speeds of at least 65 km/h (40 mph) that wrap halfway around the low level circulation centre" (emphasis mine). So it is necessary, but not sufficient, for a tropical low to have gale-force winds for it to be upgraded to a tropical cyclone. I'm removing your disputed tag as being baseless; a clarification edit might be needed.--Jasper Deng (talk) 11:23, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jasper Deng:, I read that. My edit was about why the scale Template:Australian tropical cyclone intensity scale, says category 1 starts at 63 km/h. How is that not counter-productive? The article says a tropical low starts at 65 km/h, but the scale template says a category 1 cyclone starts at 63 km/h? That is the issue. The article point blank disagrees with itself. Elijahandskip (talk) 14:47, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
@Elijahandskip: Read the section again and you will find that it says that Tropical Low is below 63 km/h or 35 kts. The article also says that the gale force winds need to be near the centre before it is named because that's the requirement for the majority of the warning centres in RA V. Australia (BoM) is the only exception to this rule. Jason Rees (talk) 20:08, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

"A very intense tropical cyclone is the highest category on the South-West Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclone scale, and has winds of over 115 knots (213 km/h; 132 mph).[24][25]"
Source 24 doesn't mention anything in our paragraph, and the PDFs the source links to are behind a Microsoft account wall.
Source 25 (see also non-404 [1]) mentions >212 km/h, but the problem probably comes from converting from km/h to knots back to km/h. Are the definitions based on km/h (makes sense since it's done by the Meteo French), or the non-SI knots?
PS: [2] uses > 58 m s^-1 which is > 208.8 km/h. (Maybe should have been 59 m s^-1 = 212.4 km/h?) -- Jeandré, 2025-01-12t14:07z

If you look on page 9 of the Tropical Cyclone Operational Plan for the South-West Indian Ocean (We provide a courtesy link to it via the WMO's website/Source 24), you will find that it says "Very intense tropical cyclone: tropical low system in which the maximum of the average wind speed is estimated to exceed 115 knots (212 km/h)." As a result, this is what we have to follow when defining what a Very Intense Tropical Cyclone is over the SWIO.Jason Rees (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
So WP's convert template 115 knots (213 km/h; 132 mph) is rounding it differently from the WMO document: 213 vs 212 km/h.
Can you please add a direct link to "Tropical Cyclone Operational Plan for the South-West Indian Ocean" to source it? When I try to go to that PDF from https://community.wmo.int/en/tropical-cyclone-operational-plans via https://wmoomm.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/wmocpdb/EYlTpV0sKLFAjl1s8ktbVBgBLNG3v60mFBTQ9TXnOcZZUw?e=GfpWcm I get errors (Microsoft wall yesterday, "Something went wrong" today.) -- Jeandré, 2025-01-13t14:12z
I wish I could provide a direct link to it but because of the way the WMO's website works, whenever you try and link to the plan directly it goes to the Microsoft wall unless you have already viewed the website during that browsing session.Jason Rees (talk) 22:33, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

In the page 2025–26 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, the "Tropical Disturbance" category is named "Zone of Disturbed Weather". Should we change our name to "Zone of Disturbed Weather" as well? 116.251.175.52 (talk) 06:43, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

It has been a while since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed an orange "sources needed" banner on top of the "Background" section since 2017. Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 02:38, 14 August 2025 (UTC)