Q: What purpose does a hurricane season prediction serve? Does anyone or any group actually ramp up or scale down funding and/or disaster preparedness based on the forecast? Who has any practical use for such information?
—Dan Cowles, Cumming
A: Various companies and agencies, including emergency management, insurance companies, the media, coastal residents and travelers use the predictions to plan for hurricane season.
Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project states that insurers use the information to help set rates and “develop reliable estimates of expected hurricane losses.”
“If such volatile hurricane loss data were to be primarily relied upon, rather than stochastic models, insurance rates could swing wildly upward and downward from one year to the next — solely due to the occurrence (or absence) of a major hurricane. So, in addition to bringing more accuracy to the ratemaking process, probabilistic models also enhance rate stability — a main actuarial consideration in ratemaking,” it states.
Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project predicts just nine named storms and three hurricanes for this hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through Nov. 30, but it, admittedly, has missed badly the past two years. It called for 18 named storms in 2013, with eight or nine major storms — category 3, 4 or 5 with sustained wind speeds of 111 mph or greater – but there were only 13 named storms and two hurricanes. The Weather Channel predicts 11 named storms, including five hurricanes, two of which are predicted to be major hurricanes.
Andy Johnston wrote this column. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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