RMS launches HWind forecasts for North Atlantic hurricanes

Catastrophe risk modelling specialist RMS has announced the launch of a new suite of hurricane forecasting products for the North Atlantic powered by RMS HWind.

The tools are part of the firms RMS HWind Real-Time Analysis Solution suite and are designed to enable proactive decisions to be made as hurricanes approach landfall, with five-day forecast track scenarios, hazard footprints, and gust probability analytics delivered every 12-hours after a tropical cyclone has been named.

They are designed to be used by insurance, reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market participants, alongside RMS’ other real-time indicators of a storms direction and loss potential to the industry or specific exposures.

Jeff Waters, Senior Product Manager of RMS North Atlantic Hurricane Models, commented, “Powered by a combination of HWind real-time observational data feeds, real-time track forecast data, and the RMS North Atlantic Hurricane modeling framework, our new forecasting products help the market gain earlier insights into potential hazard and loss impacts before landfall, informing key, time-critical decisions as the event unfolds. Having access to analytics based on real-time data that reflects an accurate range of uncertainty with track scenarios only increases the confidence and reliability in those decisions.”

RMS has validated the efficacy of the HWind forecasting products against over 15 historical storms over more than 15 years and this product was live for recent Hurricane Dorian, which offered users insights at the time when the hurricane storm was threatening to make landfall in Florida.

Mark Powell, Founder of HWind and Vice President of Model Development at RMS, added, “Several days before Hurricane Dorian’s closest approach to Florida when industry stakeholders were gearing up for an impending landfall, HWind forecasting products demonstrated an increasing probability of the storm sparing Florida and instead recurving to the north.”

The HWind products use RMS’ methodology that takes more than 100 real-time track forecasts from domestic and international weather forecasting models and brings them together with HWind analytics and the RMS North Atlantic Hurricane Models framework for analysis.

The result is a suite of representative forecast scenarios that are delivered to users every 12 hours of the life of a tropical storm or hurricane.

Hazard and the corresponding loss analytics for every scenario are consistent with the methodology RMS uses to model hurricanes across the North Atlantic Basin today.

The RMS HWind tools are designed to help users forecast track, timing, intensity and uncertainty for hurricanes and tropical storms across multiple forecast scenarios up to five days before landfall, and importantly include the tools to quantify potential losses for each scenario against specific sets of exposure(s) at risk.

The HWind tools and their output are useful for insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers and investors, as well as the broader reinsurance industry, in assisting markets to make better decisions about their potential loss exposure to a storm, as well as to inform hedging decisions and secondary market trade choices for catastrophe bonds and ILS.

As a reminder, the HWind product has been used for the development of triggers for parametric insurance and reinsurance products using its real-time hurricane exposure capabilities.