Increased northeast U.S. coast hurricane threat says WSI

Weather Services International (WSI) foresee a very active remainder of the 2010 Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season. Their latest tropical weather update calls for 18 named storms, 10 hurricanes and 5 intense hurricanes of category 3 or higher. This after a benign start to the season demonstrates the need for insurers and catastrophe bond investors to keep their eyes on the tropics.

The numbers given in this latest update are a slight drop on WSI’s previous forecast but still indicate an extremely busy few months.

The U.S. northeast coast is particularly at risk this season according to WSI. Their hurricane model (which they developed in collaboration with Guy Carpenter) suggests that the area of coastline from the Outer Banks of North Carolina running north to Maine is twice as likely to experience a land-falling hurricane this year.

That’s a statistic that reinsurers are going to be watching very closely. Usually the statistical risk of a hurricane making landfall that far north is very small but this year WSI say the risk is on par with the risk to Florida and other Gulf coast states.

You can read the press release from WSI here.

Currently the tropics are pretty active. We have hurricane Danielle churning away, currently heading for Bermuda but expected to curve northwards of it. Tropical depression 7 is on a similar track and will become tropical storm Earl and possibly hurricane Earl very soon. Another area of thunderstorms and showers off the west coast of Africa is also being watched closely as it could develop into a depression. Keep an eye on activity in the tropics this hurricane season with our Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season page.