Improving wind profile parameterization to better model large hurricane wind fields

Hurricanes are among the most destructive meteorological phenomena and can be responsible for considerable amount of damages to properties. Given the increasing population and residential and industrial properties in coastal areas, it has become crucial to better estimate and manage the financial risk associated with catastrophic landfalling hurricanes.

Improved risk assessment related to hurricanes stem from a better modeled wind. In the field of catastrophe modeling, the hurricane wind field is often modeled using a parametric representation of the vortex. Various analytical representations have been used (e.g. Holland 1980, Willoughby et al. 2006), providing, in general, a relatively faithful representation of past tropical cyclone wind fields. AIR-Worldwide has implemented a parametric model making use of the dual-exponential profiles presented by Willoughby et al (2006) rather successfully. However, the modeling of tropical cyclones presenting large wind fields with damaging winds (> 40 mph) at large radii remains quite challenging. In the present study the goal is analyze wind fields of various tropical cyclones with these characteristics. Analysis of the wind fields will help better estimate X1 and X2 decay length parameters (Willoughby et al. 2006) to better model large systems. The analysis will use available Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) data as well as any other ground-based wind data.