Question

The minimum sustained wind speed of a Category 1 hurricane is 74 miles per hour. The maximum sustained wind speed is 95 miles per hour. Write an absolute value equation that represents the minimum and maximum speeds. Let v
represent the wind speed.

Answer 1

To solve this problem, let us first calculate for the average sustained wind speed of the Category 1 hurricane:

Average sustained wind speed = (Maximum speed + Minimum speed) / 2

Average sustained wind speed = (95 mph + 74 mph) / 2

Average sustained wind speed = 84.5 mph

So we can establish that:

x = 84.5 mph     Where x represents the average speed

 

Then we calculate the range of the wind speed, this can be calculated either by subtracting the average and minimum speeds, or maximum and average speeds:

Range = 95 mph – 84.5 mph

Range = 10.5 mph

 

Therefore the absolute value equation would then be in the form of:

|x – average| = range

|x – 84.5| = 10.5