Category 5 Hurricanes

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Category 5 is the highest rating a hurricane can reach: Maximum sustained winds of 157 mph or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale ​are required for a hurricane to reach this intensity.

They are generally rare in the Atlantic Basin with just 38 (39 with 1944 one) since 1924, or nearly the past 100 years.

Ian is the most recent Atlantic Category 5: Maximum winds in Ian briefly hit 160 mph while it was over the Gulf of Mexico on the morning of Sept. 28, 2022. It then made landfall in Florida as a strong Category 4 with 150 mph winds just seven hours later.

T​here have been seven Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes since 2016: Before Ian, the last ones to do so were hurricanes Dorian and Lorenzo in 2019, Michael in 2018, Maria and Irma in 2017 and Matthew in 2016.

F​our straight years had at least one Category 5 hurricane from 2016 through 2019, the most consecutive years on record.

There have been long "droughts" as well: P​rior to 2016's Hurricane Matthew, the Atlantic went eight consecutive hurricane seasons without a Category 5. There was another eight-year stretch between hurricanes Allen and Gilbert from 1980 to 1988.

They are most common in the peak months of hurricane season: September is when Category 5 hurricanes have occurred most often, but they have also happened in August and October.

This encompasses the most active period of hurricane season. That's because all of the favorable conditions and ingredients for development are most likely to overlap over a large area of the Atlantic Basin.

H​urricane Emily was the earliest Category 5 on record, doing so in the Caribbean Sea on July 16-17, 2005. The Cuba hurricane of 1932 was the latest Category 5, the only one to do so in November (Nov. 5-8).

O​ther than the oddity that was Lorenzo in 2019, you'll notice almost all of them happen in the same general area, from the southwest Atlantic Ocean north of the Lesser Antilles into the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.

T​hese areas are so conducive to strengthening because they have a supply of deep, warm ocean water, lack hostile shearing winds and feature a parade of disturbances known as tropical waves, which act as seeds for development. The supply of deep, warm ocean water that serves as fuel for hurricanes is highest in the Atlantic Basin in these areas, particularly the western Caribbean Sea.

H​urricanes don't hold onto Category 5 intensity for very long: On average, a hurricane maintains Category 5 status for about 24 hours.

T​hat's because intense hurricanes typically undergo one or more eyewall replacement cycles. During one of these, the hurricane's intense ring of thunderstorms surrounding its eye is surrounded by a new outer ring.

W​hen that happens, the hurricane's wind intensity drops temporarily as the former eyewall is choked off. It usually intensifies again when the new outer eyewall is pulled inward, leading to a larger hurricane.

Several Category 5 hurricanes reached that intensity multiple times during their lifetime.

H​urricanes Allen (1980), Isabel (2003) and Ivan (2004) each soared to Category 5 intensity three separate times in their journeys.

T​he November 1932 Cuba hurricane (78 hours) and Hurricane Irma in 2007 (77 hours) spent the longest combined time at Category 5 strength, according to NOAA's database.

J​ust four hurricanes on record have made landfall in the mainland U.S. T​he most recent of these was Hurricane Michael in the Florida Panhandle in October 2018.

T​he others include Andrew in 1992 in South Florida, Camille in 1969 on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys.

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