VOA常速英语:Hurricane Scale Ignores Rain Dangers, Experts Say

By the time Florence hit the North Carolina coast, it had weakened from a category 4 hurricane to a category 1.
当飓风佛罗伦萨席卷美国北卡罗来纳州海岸时，它已经从4级飓风减弱为1级飓风。

Resident Famous Roberts decided not to evacuate.“A lot of people didn’t think it was actually going to be as bad as it did, but with the category job, yes. That’s another factor why we did stay. ”
居民菲莫斯·罗伯特决定拒绝撤离这里。“很多人没想到它真的会像现在这样糟糕，但是对这次飓风评定的等级又确实如此，这也是我们决定留下来的另外一个原因”。Wind speeds determine a hurricane’s category and Florence’s had dropped to a relatively tame 140 km/h.At the top of the scale category 5 starts at 250 km/h.
风速决定了飓风的等级，飓风佛罗伦萨的风速目前已降至每小时140公里，而等级最高为第五级，届时风速将达到每小时250公里以上。

But soakers Lake Florence have some meteorologists reconsidering that scale, like the University of Georgia’s Marshall Sheppard.
但是佛罗伦萨湖的一些气象学家重新考虑了这个衡量尺度，其中之一就是乔治亚大学的马歇尔·谢泼德。

There’s a significant danger in focusing too much on category with storms like hurricane Florence or Harvey,the impacts of those storms are much broader than wind speed, but yet that’s what the categories and the Saffir-Simpson scale give us.
过于关注飓风佛罗伦萨或是飓风哈维的等级其实会产生很大的危险，因为这些风暴带来的影响并不仅仅是狂风，但是飓风等级或者是萨菲尔—辛普森飓风等级只能给我们提供风速等级信息。

The most damaging part of Florence was not the wind, it was the rain, more than 80 centimeters in some places.And last year hurricane Harvey poured more than 120 centimeters of water over parts of Texas.
佛罗伦萨最具破坏力的部分并不是风，而是雨。在某些地区的降雨量达八十厘米以上，去年的飓风哈维在得克萨斯州部分地区的降雨量多达一百二十厘米以上。

Neither of these storms were really above category 1 when they did their most damage,of course Harvey was a cat 4 at landfall, but most of that rain fell in Houston when it was a tropical storm.
但是当这两次飓风造成最严重的破坏时，它们的等级都并未超过1级，当然，飓风哈维首次登陆的时候等级为4级，但当其转变为热带风暴时，大部分降雨都集中在休斯敦。

Forecasters warned about catastrophic flooding as Florence approached the coast.But experts say the message might not have resonated the way a simple five-point scale does.
气象预报员警告人们说，当飓风佛罗伦萨靠岸时也许会发生灾难性的洪水，但是专家称，人们对这一信息的反应，也许并不会像对5级风暴那样强烈。

Famous Roberts says he’ll pay closer attention when the next storm hits.“Because you’d never know. I mean, when they tell you things, you listen, you know. Next time it could be worse.”
菲莫斯·罗伯特说自己会密切关注下次风暴，“因为你永远不知道下一次风暴何时会来，当他们告诉你这些事情的时候，你才听见、了解了，但是下一次的状况很可能会更加严重。”

Some scientists are working on alternative ways to convey the potential threats that storms carry.But for now they say categories 1 through 5 are the best they’ve got.
一些科学家正在研究另一种方法来传达风暴所能带来的潜在威胁。但就目前而言，他们表示，将风暴进行1级到5级分类是他们目前能找到的最佳方式。

Steve Baragona VOA news.
美国之音记者Steve Baragona报道。