Talk:10,000 Pacific typhoon season/@comment-108.204.220.148-20131109221345/@comment-4074533-20131109225022

No. Even if Nancy or any other tropical cyclone in history had winds of hypercane intensity, it would still have been classified as a Category 5 tropical cyclone, regardless of what basin the system existed in. The SSHWS, despite being a wind scale, was not initially designed for windspeeds, but instead the potential damage a hurricane inflicts on artificial structures.

This quote from Robert Simpson, the creator of the SSHS, proves my theory:

"...when you get up into winds in excess of 155 mph (249 km/h) you have enough damage 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".

Therefore, Category 5 is the limit of the SSHS. Anything beyond that is not needed because Simpson's quote shows what a Category 5 hurricane does, and you can never overtop that.