2022 hurricane season

This morning, hurricane Ian has reached major Category 3 status and has strengthened further to 125 mph sustained winds, but more concerning for insurance, reinsurance and ILS market interests is the fact the forecast cone and track has shifted further east again, showing a landfall or very near pass to the Tampa Bay area.

Driving home the continued uncertainty over the eventual insurance, reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market impact from hurricane Ian, investment manager Twelve Capital said that modelled loss scenarios range from substantial to nothing for its ILS portfolios.

Hurricane Ian is expected to form within the next few hours, as tropical storm Ian has now begun to intensify and gain additional structure, while at the same time the forecast model consensus has shifted back east towards the Florida Peninsula’s west coast, raising the prospects of larger insurance and reinsurance market losses.

The forecast cone for tropical storm Ian, which is expected to soon become hurricane Ian, depicts a scenario no one in the insurance, reinsurance, catastrophe bond, or ILS market wants to see, a major category hurricane approaching Florida.

The tropical disturbance known as 98L (update, now known as tropical depression 9), continues to make progress through the southern Caribbean and forecast models continue to show a relatively significant consensus for a hurricane landfall in the United States, somewhere on the Gulf Coast or Florida Peninsula around the middle of next week.

A hurricane warning has now been issued for Bermuda as major hurricane Fiona approaches the island, with conditions set to deteriorate as the storm passes just to the west.

A number of weather forecast models are indicating that the Gulf of Mexico may come alive with hurricane activity later this month, as tropical disturbance 98L is expected to become a storm and then a hurricane on its path to the Gulf, with a US landfall seen as a likely outcome.

Hurricane Fiona has intensified since battering Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and has now become the first major hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic season. The Turks & Caicos Islands are now in its path and facing a damaging blow from the storm.

Hurricane Fiona has impacted Puerto Rico heavily with the island experiencing a historic rainfall event, as two-foot of rains are forecast from the storm, with locally maximum amounts of up to 30 inches warned.

With recent forecast model runs it appears the uncertainty over where tropical storm Fiona heads over the next week has risen, with more models showing a closer path to the United States, and fewer preferring the track through the Atlantic near Bermuda.