Hurricanes are classified with the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. However an extreme amount of rainfall can cause a disaster although the windspeeds are not extreme. Is there some sort of classification where estimated rainfall caused by a hurricane is taken into account?
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$\begingroup$ The forward speed of a tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane plays a more important role than its intensity on the amount of rainfall it will produce over a given area. weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/… $\endgroup$– f.thorpe ♦Aug 28, 2018 at 22:20
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At the current moment, none that are in operaational use. The problem with using expected measurements is that there may be multiple drastically different estimates, and then there is the problem of errors creating misclassification. There have been attempts, but none of them that are noteworthy or operationally used, that I know of.
This article may be relevant to your question. This article may also be relevant, but is obviously dated considering the events of Hurricane Harvey. Harvey also highlighted the problem of rainfall relative to runoff, which is significant in urban areas and concave/parabolic topography.
answered Aug 29, 2018 at 15:04
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1$\begingroup$ The first article is very interesting, thank you. I'm still wondering why a more broader scale like this HCS scale is not often mentioned. The Saffir–Simpson classification is still the only real standard. I believe, especially after Harvey, the potential total rainfall amount should be taking into account despite the uncertainties and errors. $\endgroup$– 3TW3Sep 12, 2018 at 5:42
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$\begingroup$ I recently found this interesting article regarding hurricane Florence: forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2018/09/14/… $\endgroup$– 3TW3Sep 19, 2018 at 16:56
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$\begingroup$ that's interesting! I'm glad to see that more people are focussing on the rainfall and intensity as well $\endgroup$– 3TW3Sep 19, 2018 at 19:37