Hurricane Irene (2011) "worst-case" estimates of wind damage to property from exigent analysis of ECMWF ensemble forecasts

Abstract

In late August 2011, Hurricane Irene damaged property along the U.S. East Coast, making landfalls in the Carolinas and in the New York metro area. At each initial forecast time, the ECMWF forecast ensemble provides a measure of the possible outcomes. For each ensemble member the maximum sustained wind predicted at each location is used to estimate the expected property damage due to wind. "Worst-case" or exigent scenarios are developed that are consistent with the range of forecasts in the ensemble. Exigent scenarios are potentially useful to emergency responders and planners and applicable to any area of geophysics for which spatial uncertainty is represented by an ensemble of realizations. For the case of Hurricane Irene, the exigent patterns of damage are centered on New York Harbor and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. © 2012. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.