Records
The strongest hurricane ever? Winds vs pressure
Ask which storm was the strongest and you will get a different answer depending on what you measure. Two storms share the fastest winds in the archive. A third, from the other side of the world, has the lowest pressure ever recorded in a tropical cyclone.
Worldwide wind: 185 knots (213 mph), Hurricane Patricia (2015, eastern Pacific) and Typhoon Nancy (1961, western Pacific).
Worldwide pressure: 870 hPa, Typhoon Tip (1979).
Atlantic wind: 165 knots in the archive's US column, Hurricane Melissa (2025). Atlantic pressure: 882 hPa, Hurricane Wilma (2005).
Patricia: the wind record that holds up
Patricia formed over the eastern Pacific in October 2015. At its peak it reached 185 knots in NOAA's best track, the fastest maximum sustained wind in that record. It weakened before reaching Mexico's Pacific coast. The storm page shows the full track, and NOAA's hurricane lab has the write-up.
Nancy: a record that may have been overstated
Typhoon Nancy also has 185 knots, from September 1961. Wind estimates from the 1940s to the 1960s are now judged to have run high, and Nancy's value may be lower than its official best track. Its storm page keeps the archived numbers, so read them as the recorded estimate rather than a settled fact.
Tip: the lowest pressure ever measured
Typhoon Tip reached 870 hPa in October 1979, the lowest central pressure for any tropical cyclone. Its archived peak wind, 165 knots, sits well below the record. Agencies also disagree about its peak: the Japan Meteorological Agency's ten-minute winds were 260 km/h, while the Joint Typhoon Warning Center's one-minute winds were 305 km/h. The storm page covers its archived track.
The Atlantic answers
Wilma holds the Atlantic pressure record at 882 hPa, set in October 2005. Melissa in 2025 has the strongest Atlantic wind in the archive, 165 knots. Best tracks are revised over time, so the storm page for each system notes which values it uses.
The terms that matter
Maximum sustained wind is the average over one minute at the surface, the figure in the US-agency column. Ten-minute averages are lower, so an agency that uses them reports smaller numbers for the same storm. Central pressure tells you how deep the storm's core is, and says little about wind at any one spot. The archive begins in 1950, so the 1780 Great Hurricane and other older storms are outside these records.
Sources
- NOAA IBTrACS v04r01 archive, US-agency wind and pressure columns
- NOAA AOML, Hurricane Patricia record summary
- Typhoon Nancy (1961), Wikipedia (secondary)
- Typhoon Tip, Wikipedia (secondary)