THE world-famous Saffir-Simpson scale rates the most destructive force of hurricane as being a Category 5.
Which is apt, because in making it five wins on the trot it took a quite storming Hearts performance to blow apart Rangers' title hopes.
Two lightning-quick strikes sent us on our way to a famous victory with Celtic the only other SPL team to put
together a winning run like this.
And in doing so, victory hauled us up to within four points of the Govan side and put some distance between Hearts and the chasing pack.
When I stated last week that I thought Hearts had a real crack at taking down Rangers at Tynecastle, some simply laughed.
But who's smiling now?
There was one thing about Saturday's incredible end-to-end game that stuck out more than anything else – the atmosphere. It was thunderous, and little wonder.
The home fans were magnificent from the start, roaring their support in triple digit decibels and making the hair on the back of the neck stand up in the way that only the excitement and raw passion of a great football occasion can do.
It was a sound that has long been missing from Tynecastle, a stadium once lauded as being among the best in the UK for atmosphere. Until Saturday I feared it had been lost.
Such had been the depression hanging over Gorgie at times, it was as if even the fans couldn't be bothered working themselves up because they had been getting nothing back in return.
Yet, despite it all, they kept coming, turning out in numbers, keeping faith. And at last, Saturday was their reward as the maroon and white scarves twirled blizzard-like through four minutes of added time.
Csaba Laszlo called upon his players to treat the game like a cup tie, and boy did they respond.
It was all things Jambo telling the morning papers where to stick their eve-of-match headlines.
And it was such fighting talk that saw the Maroon legions having a stranglehold on not just the first 45 minutes on Saturday, but look defiant throughout.
The fact that Rangers had so many players booked early on was perhaps the most telling sign of how dominant Hearts were.
Their discipline failed. Their ideas ran dry against a defence clearly ready for them.
Bruno Aguiar was, yet again, immense in the middle of the park. Indeed it was his beautifully executed crosses into the box that lead to the opening goals, sparking jubilation in the ranks.
We did make it difficult for ourselves and Lee Wallace can have no complaints about his red card. At best he was naïve. There was no need for him to risk the challenge that he did when he had so many defenders at his back.
So credit to young Andrew Driver, in particular, who showed great maturity keeping the ball as long as he could in the Rangers half to ease the pressure during 20-odd minutes of playing with ten men.
Christian Nade earned his applause when finally substituted, Larry Kingston played as well as he has for a while having been stung by recent criticisms, and Berra was again impressive.
The performance from all the players was all the more special given the early morning headlines that screamed chaos in the ranks.
At times you wonder if the club wants to shoot itself in the foot – wages left unpaid on the eve of such a massive game.
If you take the excuses at face value then at best, it is a shoddy way to treat your employees.
But what it does is engender distraction, speculation and fears of what is really going on behind the scenes.
Especially when you tie it in with revelations earlier from the Evening News about yet more delays in the stadium redevelopment.
Despite it all, Csaba Laszlo's charges have responded with a kind of siege mentality that has resulted in a major transformation.
After the game he summed up what I think is the difference between the New Hearts of now and the team he inherited.
Quizzed about the missing players' wages, he chuckled, and said: "Three point is the best payment I could get."
With that single comment he proved what a class act he is.
TODAY is World AIDS Day, used to co-ordinate events aimed at helping raise awareness about the condition and to try to defeat the stigma surrounding it.
Edinburgh, as we know, has suffered more than many cities over the years and it remains a startling fact that at least a third of HIV-positive men in Auld Reekie remain unaware of their condition.
So I think Hearts are to be applauded for wearing specially commissioned red armbands against Rangers on Saturday, matching the internationally recognised red ribbon symbol.
It was part of an initiative through NHS Lothian's HIV Comeback Tour that this year focuses on the message "Respect and Protect".
The tie-up goes to show how important a role Hearts can play in the community.
Already they have received deserved plaudits over their schools and educational initiatives, and this gesture can only do more good.
