Hurricane Sandy (2012) scored 83/100 on the Destructive Power Score scale — a Catastrophic event.

Saffir-Simpson rated this a Category 3 based on peak wind alone. DPS combines intensity with storm size, surge potential, duration of coastal exposure, and geographic reach for a fuller picture of destructive potential.

Sandy made New Jersey landfall as a post-tropical Category 1 — and remains the most destructive storm in modern Northeast history. The Saffir-Simpson Category label captures peak one-minute wind at landfall; it does not capture the 1,000-mile wind field Sandy carried into the I-95 corridor. Sandy's Integrated Kinetic Energy peaked at 640 TJ, the largest in the StormDPS Atlantic dataset. Tropical-storm-force winds extended 485 nautical miles from the center, exposing the entire DC-to-Boston corridor to 30+ hours of damaging wind, surge, and rain. The 83 DPS reflects that footprint: 73.6 from the per-snapshot composite, plus the maximum 10% from breadth (wind-field size × coastal exposure) and another 8% from Northeast economic density. This is exactly the storm DPS was built to catch.

Landfall: Cuba / Jamaica, Mid-Atlantic (2 landfalls).