usually divided by 10,000 to make them more manageable. One unit of ACE equals and for use as an index the unit is assumed. Thus: where vmax is estimated sustained wind speed in knots. Kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity, and by adding together the energy per some interval of time, the accumulated energy is found. As the duration of a storm increases, more values are summed and the ACE also increases such that longer-duration storms may accumulate a larger ACE than more-powerful storms of lesser duration. Although ACE is a value roughly proportional to the definite integral over time of the kinetic energy of the system, it is not a direct calculation of energy (the mass of the moved air and therefore the size of the storm would affect a real energy calculation). Atlantic Ocean Within the Atlantic Ocean, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and others use the ACE index of a season to classify the season into one of four categories. These four categories are extremely active, above-normal, near-normal, and below-normal, and are worked out using an approximate quartile partitioning of seasons based on the ACE index over the 70 years between 1951 and 2020. The median value of the ACE index from 1951 to 2020 is 96.7 x 104 kt2. Individual storms in the Atlantic The highest ever ACE estimated for a single storm in the Atlantic is 73.6, for the San Ciriaco hurricane in 1899. A Category 4 hurricane which lasted for four weeks, this single storm had an ACE higher than many whole Atlantic storm seasons. Other Atlantic storms with high ACEs include Hurricane Ivan in 2004, with an ACE of 70.4, Hurricane Irma in 2017, with an ACE of 64.9, the Great Charleston Hurricane in 1893, with an ACE of 63.5, Hurricane Isabel in 2003, with an ACE of 63.3, and the 1932 Cuba hurricane, with an ACE of 59.8. Since 1950, the highest ACE of a tropical storm was Tropical Storm Laura in 1971, which attained an ACE of 8.6. The highest ACE of a Category 1 hurricane was Hurricane Nadine in 2012, which attained an ACE of 26.3. The lowest ACE of a tropical storm were tropical storms Chris (2000) and Philippe (2017), both of which were tropical storms for only six hours and had an ACE of just 0.1. The lowest ACE of any hurricane