While earthquakes and tropical hurricanes often receive considerably more media attention, mid-latitude winter storms are the cause of a considerable amount of damage. Indeed, some of the costliest events in modern history (in terms of insured losses) have resulted from strong winds associated with frontal-wave cyclones over northwestern Europe. Costly winter storms have also occurred in North America, the infamous “Storm of the Century” (March 1993) being just one example.

A regional "storm-climate" model for has been developed as an integration of the NCAR-NCEP Global Reanalysis Project data set and the 5th generation NCAR - Penn State University mesoscale model (MM5). In its statistical-dynamical (or Monte Carlo based ensemble) implementation, this model produces realistic return-period profiles when compared with other extreme event metrics. In this presentation the model-system's design and performance will be discussed, including its use with impact (economic loss) models.