Hurricane Wilma

Pre-Landfall 2 | Summary
Posting Date: October 21, 2005, 11:00:00 AM

As of 5 a.m. EDT, Friday, October 21, 2005, Wilma remains a powerful Category 4 hurricane. Wilma’s center is located about 55 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 85 miles, and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 200 miles. Wilma is moving northwest at around 5 mph with an estimated minimum central pressure is 929 mb. Following Wednesday’s record-setting central pressure of 882 mb and the most rapid intensification in hurricane history, Wilma has moved slowly and erratically toward Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. A hurricane warning remains in effect from San Felipe to Chetumal on the Yucatan peninsula, including Cozumel and the nearby islands. A hurricane watch remains in effect in Cuba for the provinces of Matanzas westward through Pinar del Rio, and for the Isle of Youth. Though damage and injury reports are still few at this time, there has been flooding in city streets on the Yucatan peninsula, power was knocked out to 20 towns in Honduras, and 12 people died in landslides in Haiti. Due to the storm’s slow forward speed, Wilma’s intense winds could pound properties on the Yucatan peninsula for hours. Evacuations in advance of the storm have been extensive: 50 hotels were evacuated in Cancun, 20,000 people were evacuated from the Mexican provinces of Yucatan and Quintana Roo, and 370,000 were evacuated in the low-lying areas of Cuba’s western coasts. In the U.S., tourists have been ordered out of the Florida Keys. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Wilma to produce storm surge of 7 to 11 feet on the northeastern shores of the Yucatan peninsula, as well as 10 to 20 inches of rain on the peninsula and Cuba, with isolated areas receiving up to 40 inches. Following landfall in Mexico, Wilma is expected to turn sharply to the northeast. Wilma’s intensity as it approaches Florida will be governed largely by increasing shear conditions over the Gulf of Mexico, which should steadily weaken the storm. In fact, the NHC is currently projecting that Wilma will be a Category 1 hurricane by the time it reaches the Florida coast. However, it is important to note that there is still considerable uncertainty with respect both to the future track and intensity of this storm. The AIR tropical cyclone team has run scenarios using the latest meteorological information about Hurricane Wilma. Eleven scenarios are now posted on the Scenarios page of this website, with losses ranging from $16 billion to $0. This range represents the 5th to the 95th percentile of the exceedance probability curve. However, the full set of events available for download includes more extreme events, up to $61 billion, that are less likely, but which could occur. On the Event Sets page there are both “All” and “Select” event sets for CATRADER and CLASIC/2. The “All” event set contains the full set of scenarios simulated for this event and is therefore the most appropriate method for estimating your potential losses. A set of 11 specific scenarios, which are selected from the full event set and represent the range of potential losses across the full industry loss distribution, are available under the “Select” event set.

Pre-Landfall 2 | Downloads
Posting Date: October 21, 2005, 11:00:00 AM