Graphing Hurricane Wind Speeds

Turn hurricane data into real science thinking with this scaffolded graphing worksheet built for middle school students in grades 6-8. Students graph the landfall wind speeds of nine famous hurricanes, classify each storm using the Saffir-Simpson Scale, and analyze what the scale does and does not measure.

This is a true data-analysis activity, not a fill-in-the-blank page. Learners work from a blank bar-graph grid, plot real wind-speed values, and then use category thresholds to sort each storm from Category 1 to Category 5. A Predict-First prompt builds inquiry before the graphing begins, and the closing analysis questions target a powerful misconception: that Hurricane Katrina's Category 3 landfall means the scale measures total damage. It does not.

What's included: a one-to-two page student worksheet, a data table of historic hurricanes, a blank graphing grid, and a complete answer key featuring the fully plotted reference graph with category-threshold lines drawn in.

Skills covered: reading and building bar graphs, interpreting data, hurricane categories, wind speed, and evidence-based reasoning. Aligned to NGSS MS-ESS3-2. Print and teach, or use in a station or sub-plan. A perfect fit for a severe weather, natural hazards, or meteorology unit.