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Research Divisions

Group Members :
Bachir Annane
Neal Dorst

Collaborators :
S. Cocke (FSU)
L. Axe (FSU)
S. Gulati (FIU)
J. Pinelli (FIT)
K. Gurley (UF)
S. Hamid (FIU)

Objective :
To support development of the State of Florida Hurricane loss projection model.

Description :
The Florida Hurricane Loss Projection model was developed for the people of Florida to provide an open, public, methodology for estimating average annual insured loss due to hurricane wind damage:

• The historical hurricane climate is used to simulate hurricane activity out to thousands of years using Monte Carlo modeling
• Individual storms are simulated throughout a threat area centered on Florida
• Peak winds at each zip code determine wind risk probability
• The wind probabilities are fed to an engineering damage model which in-turn feeds an actuarial model to compute insured losses

Methods :

• Motion and intensity are modeled as Markov processes based on seasonal historic motion distributions
• Wind fields are modeled for all hurricanes landfalling or bypassing within a damage threshold distance of a zip code
• A PBL slab model for the equations of motion is solved given motion, pressure, Rmax, and pressure profile inputs
• PBL winds are adjusted to the surface based on results of GPS sonde research, for open and marine exposures.
• Zip code winds are computed based on remote sensing estimates of upstream roughness based on land use land cover.
• The model meets strict standards of the Florida Commission
• Office of Insurance Regulation will use model as a baseline to evaluate results of proprietary models used for justifying insurance rate increases

Accomplishments :
Simple version of model delivered. Use cases created for Rmax, Beta, Annual occurrence, time of genesis. Manuscript prepared and in review.

References:
State of Florida Hurricane Loss Projection Model: Atmospheric Science Component. Mark Powell, George Soukup, Steve Cocke, Sneh Gulati, Nirva Morisseau-Leroy, Neal Dorst and Lizabeth Axe
Submitted to Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics

Last modified: 11/1/2007