But wait—wind speed isn’t the only way to measure “strongest.” There’s also barometric pressure, which is the romantic way of saying how much the atmosphere is crushing down on us. The lower the pressure, the angrier the storm. The record here belongs to Typhoon Tip in 1979, which dropped to a pressure low enough to make even a scuba diver gasp.
Tip was a girthy beast. It had a diameter of 1,380 miles—that’s bigger than the entire state of Texas, which means it could swallow California, Nevada, and Arizona as an appetizer. Patricia, by contrast, was a compact, steroid-pumped bodybuilder of a storm.
Size Isn't Everything (But It Helps)
Imagine you’re a butterfly in a hurricane. The wind is the same, but the size of the storm determines how long you’ll be screaming. Tip’s massive size meant it could bulldoze entire island chains for days, like a grumpy giant taking a very long nap on your house. Patricia was more like a ninja: tiny, terrifying, and gone before you could say "I should have bought more plywood."
And then there’s the sneaky category of storm surge, which is just water acting like it’s had too much caffeine. The highest storm surge ever recorded? That’s from Hurricane Camille in 1969, which pushed a wall of water 24 feet high onto the Mississippi coast. That’s taller than a giraffe standing on another giraffe’s shoulders.
The 7 Strongest Hurricanes Ever Recorded on Earth - A-Z Animals
