But of course, an airplane can't realistically sample wind speeds at ground level, where even things like waves will create a certain amount of turbulence and drag. The anemometer on bouy 42060 is only 4 meters above the water. (Supposedly, the Hurricane Hunter doing a recent sampling got a flight-level (about 10,000 ft) reading of 180 mph . . . just how to extrapolate that to surface-level winds is hotly debated.)

Wind speed at 10,000 feet is irrelevant. The Saffir-Simpson scale is based on wind speed at 10 meters to predict building damage. If NOAA has changed how they rate hurricanes I want to know about it because it's not comparing apples to apples to compare hurricane wind speed measured at 10 meters with that measured at 10,000 feet.
 

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