What  is the Highest Hurricane Wind Speed Ever?
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There are so many online resources for this, why would you ask here?\n\nFind these sites or ask at your library about: National Weather Service; National Hurricane Tracking Center; www.weather.com.
1140889
Its maximum sustained winds (measured or best estimate due to a general lack of data over oceans) would reach 39 mph. It will almost certainly affect some residential areas either way - but not threatening at this time.
48800
A hurricane begins when a warm, wet mass of air over the sea begins to rise quickly. Then combined actions of air, water and heat may then produce a huge, spinning system of clouds, rain and wind- a hurricane. The center, or eye, of a hurricane is calm. It is a hole in a dough-nut of wind. \nA hurricane usually lasts 9-12 days. It forms and builds strength over warm sea water. It loses energy as it moves over cooler sea water or land.
851630
The Beaufort Scale measures wind speed.\nSir speed? what's that?
725797
A storm has to do with strong winds.  I'd say anything stronger that 30 mph winds is classified as a storm.  Plus, storm winds do damage other than flooding that a heavy rain would do.
14035
I think this is the subject of a lively debate, but nothing has been determined, one way or the other.\n\nHere are some thoughts extracted from an article on the topic:\n\nThe history of the scale\n\nIn 1967, the United Nations commissioned Saffir, a Florida consultant engineer, to study low-cost housing in regions of the world that were prone to tropical cyclones and hurricanes.\n\nSaffir realized there was no way to describe the effects of a hurricane, so he developed his own five-category scale. Later, Robert Simpson, then director of the National Hurricane Center, modified Saffir's work, adding measurements for flooding and storm surge.\n\nThe result was the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Rating scale.\n\nA Category 1 storm begins at 74 mph and a Category 5 at 156 mph. On average, there is about a 20 mph increment in wind speed between the categories.\n\nAn extrapolation suggests that if a Category 6 were there, it would be in the range of 176-196 mph. Hurricane Wilma, which had maximum recorded wind speeds of 175 mph, would have been on the verge of breaking into this hypothetical new category.\n\nThe scale didn't include a Category 6 for two reasons.\n\nFirst, it was designed to measure the amount of damage inflicted by a hurricane's winds, and beyond 156 mph, the damage begins to look about the same, according to Simpson.\n\n"When you get up into winds in excess of 155 mph you have enough damage," Simpson said in a 1999 interview with the National Weather Log, a publication of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.\n\n"If that extreme wind sustains itself for as much as six seconds on a building it's going to cause rupturing damages that are serious no matter how well it's engineered. So I think that it's immaterial what will happen with winds stronger than 156 miles per hour. That's the reason why we didn't try to go any higher than that," Simpson said.\n\nAnother reason is that Category 5 hurricanes are relatively rare, or at least they used to be.\n\n"In general, I didn't expect that there would be too many hurricanes that went [above] 155 miles per hour for sustained winds," Saffir said. "The limit seems to be about 175 miles per hour and I don't know of anything that goes much over that."\n\nSome scientists predict, however, that the intensity of hurricanes and their maximum wind speeds may be increasing and that Category 4 and 5 storms will become more common in the years to come.\n\nBehind the beast\n\nOcean and atmospheric temperatures work together to determine the maximum wind speed attainable. This value is known as the "maximum potential hurricane intensity" and is calculated using a formula developed in 1998 by Emanuel, the MIT climatologist.\n\nBased on ocean and atmospheric conditions on Earth nowadays, the estimated maximum potential for hurricanes is about 190 mph.\n\nThis upper limit is not absolute, however. It can change as a result of changes in climate. Scientists predict that as global warming continues, the maximum potential hurricane intensity will go up. They disagree, however, on what the increase will be.\n\nEmanuel and other scientists have predicted that wind speeds—including maximum wind speeds—should increase about 5 percent for every 1 degree Celsius increase in tropical ocean temperatures.\n\nChris Landsea, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, disagrees.\n\nLandsea believes that even in the worst-case global warming scenarios, where global temperatures ratchet up by an additional 1-6 degrees Celsius, there would be about a 5 percent change, total, by the end of the 21st Century. That means that hurricane-force winds are unlikely to exceed 200 mph, Landsea said.\n\nThe fastest "regular" wind that's widely agreed upon was 231 mph, recorded at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, on April 12, 1934. During a May 1999 tornado in Oklahoma, researchers clocked the wind a
747413
140 mph winds and 11 foot tidal surge
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For speed of a hurricane they use the Saffir-Simpson Scale. See link one for more information on hurricane speeds. For picture of damage for each level, see link two. I found no information on the height of a hurricane.
773327
231 mph in Mount Washington, New Hampshire, 1976 (that has to be windy lol)
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Barometric Pressure Wind Speed Storm Surge Damage \n \nCategory 1 more than 980 mb 74 - 95 mph 4 - 5 ft. Minimal  \nCategory 2 965-979 mb 96 - 110 mph 6 - 8 ft. Moderate \nCategory 3\n 945-964 mb 111 - 130 mph 9 - 12 ft. Extensive \nCategory 4 920-944 mb 131 - 155 mph 13 - 18 ft. Extreme \nCategory 5 919 mb Over 155 mph Over 18 ft. Catastrophic \nTropical depression: maximum sustained winds of 39 mph.  \nTropical storm: 40-73 mph.
188067
Storm historians think the Florida Keys 1935 Labor Day hurricane was perhaps the most intense hurricane ever - even though no wind measurements are available.
438807
Because that's what we say it is.  This is just an arbitrary standard.  There is no particular reason why it couldn't be 70 mph or 80 mph.  It is just that we know from experience what damage can be caused by certain windspeeds, and storms with winds less than 75 mph are typically not too dangerous.
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Hurricanes are strong wind storms, which are cyclonic in nature. This means that they revolve around a central point, which is known as an ‘eye’. The eye is the calmest part in the storm, while the winds raging around the storm have reached a speed of 119 km an hour! The winds rotate in an anti-clockwise direction in the northern hemisphere, and in a clockwise direction in the southern hemisphere. \n\n\nHow are hurricanes formed? \n\nHurricanes are formed in tropical, ocean areas. The warm air above the ocean begins to rise, and as it rises, it condenses and forms clouds and rain droplets. The process of condensation always results in the release of heat. So when the heated air rises and releases heat during condensation, the surrounding air also becomes warm. This warm air rises further, and then gets blown away by the high altitude winds, and cold air is pushed down to the ocean. The cold air then becomes warm because of the warmth of the ocean, and rises up again and is blown away. In addition, converging winds over the ocean (winds that run into each other) also push the ocean air upwards. Since the ocean air is in any case rising when they are warmed, the converging winds make it rise even faster. Thus, due to these phenomena, the movement of air increasingly becomes more and more rapid. \n\n\nWhat are tornadoes? \n\nFar more violent than hurricanes are tornadoes. Winds surrounding tornadoes often reach speeds of 100 miles an hour, and have even reached speeds of 300 miles an hour. \n\n\nHow are tornadoes formed? \n\nTornadoes are usually formed from thunderstorms and can be defined as a violent column of air extending from the base of a thundercloud to the ground. To put it simply, thunderstorms that rage in the sky ‘drop’ what appears to be a rope, but is actually a gust of wind moving in a circular direction. When this ‘rope’ touches the ground, it wreaks havoc. \n\nTornadoes are formed in a similar manner as hurricanes. Warm, moist air rises up and condenses, releasing heat and forming a thundercloud and rain. (Tornadoes are thus often accompanied by rain, and can cause flooding.) This continuous rise of air upwards is called an ‘updraft’, and a low pressure area is created in the center. High pressure cold winds are then sucked inwards, and the colliding forces causes the thunderstorm to rage. \n\nThese clouds are often green in colour, and at times the sky too turns green – a phenomenon that scientists still don’t have an explanation for. Hurricanes and tornadoes are similar to the extent that they both have a cyclonic movement, which means that they rotate around an eye. A tornado’s movement, as we have seen, is far swifter and more centered. \n\n\nHow are tornadoes ranked? \n\nTornadoes are ranked on a six-tiered “Fujita Scale”. A rank of F0 means that the tornado is weak and has caused a minimal of damage, while a rank of F6 means that the tornado was severe and has caused many deaths and damage to property. The vortex of a tornado is a dangerous place to be because here is where there is maximum rain and hail.
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Extreme?\n\nCaught on a caribbean island in the middle of a class 5 hurricane with 250mph winds, a 30ft storm surge while pinned in a 2 story condo 10 feet above sea level.\n\nDon't believe me?  I took video: http://www.youtube.com/user/Brythonic
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Yes, Its considered a category 5 hurricane.
549304
The worst blizzards occur in the world's greatest mountain ranges and usually at high altitude.  I don't think there'll be any accurate record of the worst one ever but there's several that have lasted for many days or even weeks with wind speeds often in excess of double that of a hurricane.
563821
Increase.  I have seen a tornado up close, like right over head.  It brought in two different winds and they ran around in a circle.  The faster they blew, the stronger the storm.  A hurricane is like a great big whirlwind.  A large amount of the damage attributed to a hurricane is often done by the tornadoes it creates by the unstable air on its edges.  Best advice...Stay out of their way.