Jonathan Stott wrote in
:

I really don't think in this case that it was a problem. I mean,
semantically, it wasn't a hurricane, but to all intents and purposes,
does the average person on the street know *exactly* what constitutes a
hurricane?

Perhaps we should have our own scale for Atlantic storms similar to the
Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes...

For me, the comparison with a hurricane in terms of the sustained winds on
the Saffir-Simpson scale actually brought it home to me how strong the
winds were! I realise we're not dealing with a hurricane but it was a
useful comparison. For interest - the system was about 1-2 knots short of a
Category 3 Hurricane in terms of classification by sustained winds.

Richard