If you go up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire and look in the Meteorological Meseum they have there, you can see the broken spring anemometer, pegged at 231 MPH as it has been since 1934. For six decades it was the World’s Highest Recorded Wind Gust, and was in the Guiness Book of Records.
They apparently just discovered that a higher gust – 253 MPH – was recorded at Australia’s Barrow Island during Cyclone Olivia back in 1996 (They must have a HUGE backlog of data there, or something).
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1228470&srvc=rss