Axios

A new post-storm analysis of Hurricane Michael — which wreaked havoc on the Florida panhandle last October — has reclassified the weather event to Category 5, the top of the scale, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Driving the news: Meteorologists announced on Friday that Michael's maximum sustained winds when it touched ground near Florida's Mexico Beach and Tyndall Air Force Base, were recorded at 160 mph — exceeding the 157 mph threshold to earn a Category 5 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The new findings were based on "analysis of reconnaissance aircraft winds, surface winds, surface pressure, Doppler winds and estimates of intensity from satellite imagery," according to the Weather Channel. This is only the fourth Category 5 storm recorded in U.S. history to make landfall. Hurricane Michael resulted in an estimated $25 billion in damage.

Go deeper: Southeast, Midwest and Puerto Rico wait for federal disaster relief

The Weather Channel could not broadcast live television on Thursday morning by what the network is describing as a "malicious software attack on the network."

Catch up quick: The station's early morning show "AMHQ" was unable to go live on the air at its scheduled 6 am ET start time. For more than an hour and a half, taped programming filled the time, until the AMHQ show returned to the air at 7:39 am ET. The network, owned by Entertainment Studios, issued a statement explaining that federal law enforcement is investigating the incident.

Per Axios' Andrew Freedman, the incident comes during a multi-day severe weather outbreak that is bringing the threat of damaging storms, including potential tornadoes, to the Gulf Coast on Thursday. As of September 2018, The Weather Channel was received by nearly 79.128 million households that subscribe to the station's service throughout the U.S.