So it was that warm water that turned it into a category five hurricane?

BBC: Climate chaos: Transcript

Preliminary calculations suggest that it could reduce the strength of cyclonic storms substantially, perhaps weakening a category five hurricane to a category four or three and thus preventing billions of dollars of damage and the cost of human lives lost.

FORBES: Hacking the Planet for Profit

Any given bit of the coast seems likely to be hit by a hurricane of category four or five (the worst sort), on average, once every 300 years.

ECONOMIST: Eye on the storm | The

The 2007 season was the weakest in five years, despite two hurricanes making landfall at Category 5 intensity, according to the National Hurricane Center.

CNN: NOAA predicts above-normal '08 hurricane season

The forecast said three to five of the hurricanes will be major storms ranked Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane strength.

CNN: NOAA predicts two or three hurricanes to hit U.S.