Hurricane Frances

Post Landfall 2 | Summary
Posting Date: September 7, 2004, 4:00:00 AM

After its 24-hour crawl across the Florida peninsula, Hurricane Frances headed into the Gulf of Mexico around 11 p.m. on Sunday night. Frances then turned to the northwest and made a second landfall as a tropical storm on the panhandle near St. Marks at around 2 p.m. Monday afternoon. Still moving at just 8 mph, Frances dumped more rain on the panhandle and Georgia. The National Hurricane Center forecasts the remnants of Frances will continue on a northerly and then northeasterly track over the next few days. Although Hurricane Frances made landfall on the east coast of Florida as a Category 2 hurricane, the storm’s enormous size—the diameter of hurricane force winds was over three times that of Charley—will have a significant impact on ultimate insured losses. Frances brought hurricane force winds to an unusually broad swath of the Florida peninsula, extending to 85 miles from the storm’s center. Tropical storm force winds extended to near 200 miles on either side. In addition, Frances’ exceptionally slow forward speed further exacerbated the storm’s effects, a reminder that wind duration is an important factor in wind damage. High winds began battering structures well before the eye reached the coast, and continued to batter them for most of the 24-hour period it took for Frances to cross the state. The storm’s slow forward speed also meant that many areas received large amounts of rainfall, more than 12 inches in some areas. Preliminary damage reports confirm that the duration of both rain and high winds has resulted in large numbers of downed trees. Flooding, which has been reported across the state from Vero Beach to Tampa, is expected to result in significant insured losses to automobiles. While Frances will not result in the severe structural damage caused by Hurricane Charley, AIR estimates slight to moderate damage to roof coverings, awnings and light structures, and more significant damage to mobile homes along Florida’s east coast. The AIR tropical cyclone team has run new scenarios using the storm’s actual track and information about Frances’ meteorological parameters at its second landfall. Five of these, representing a variety of assumptions about the storm’s future track and intensity, are now posted on the scenarios page of this website, where CATRADER® and CLASIC/2™ clients can view wind speed and loss maps. In addition, event sets representing the full range of simulated scenarios are now available for download. Note that the loss estimates provided in these event sets are for the U.S. only. There will be a final posting on Hurricane Frances, which will include losses for both the Bahamas and the U.S., later today.

Post Landfall 2 | Downloads
Posting Date: September 7, 2004, 4:00:00 AM