What is needed is a parallel to the scales used for hurricanes, eg 1 being
trivial to 5 being devastating.

So Tuesday night's windstorm might have been rated a 4 (as might have been
the October storm of 1987)

I leave it to the experts to decide on the details of the parameters to be
used, but there must be some clues in the hurricane scale that are a good
starting point.

Brian Blair came up with this idea of "ratings" in the first place. Let's
not forget where the rightful credit is due.

Jack