Topic summary
Atlantic hurricanes
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Atlantic hurricane.
Intensity
Tropical cyclones can be categorized by intensity. The intensity of a tropical cyclone is generally determined by either a storm's maximum sustained winds or its lowest barometric pressure. The following table lists the most intense Atlantic hurricanes in terms of their lowest barometric pressure. In terms of wind speed, Hurricane Allen and Hurricane Melissa were the strongest Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, with maximum sustained winds of 165 knots (190 mph; 305 km/h). However, Allen's measurements are suspect, since instrumentation used to document wind speeds at the time was likely to succumb to winds of such intensity. Nonetheless, their central pressures are low enough to rank them among the strongest recorded Atlantic hurricanes.