Hurricane Dolly (US)

Post Landfall 1 | Summary
Posting Date: July 24, 2008, 2:30:00 PM

AIR has narrowed its range of estimated insured losses from Hurricane Dolly in the United States to between USD 300 million and USD600 million. The revised loss estimate falls at the low end of the AIR's preliminary estimate of losses issued yesterday due to the fact that Dolly's actual track inland was on the northern edge of the range of forecast tracks issued by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) at the time of landfall. Because wind speeds and storm surge are higher on the right-hand side of hurricane tracks in the northern hemisphere, the largest concentration of exposure in the US—Brownsville, Texas—was spared the worst of Dolly's winds. [Please note that loss estimates for Mexico from Hurricane Dolly are posted separately, as a separate event on ALERT.] After slowing for several hours to a near standstill about 35 miles offshore, the eyewall of Hurricane Dolly finally crossed South Padre Island at around 1:00 pm EDT yesterday as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph. One hour later, winds had diminished to 95 mph as Dolly hovered just onshore over Laguna Madre, Texas. As of 2:00 pm EDT today, July 24, Dolly has been downgraded to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of near 40 mph and higher gusts. Central pressure is 998 mb. The center of the system is about 30 miles northwest of Laredo, Texas and moving to the west-northwest at about 13 mph. The tropical storm warning that had been in effect along the Texas coast from Brownsville to Port Aransas was lifted at 11:00 am EDT this morning. The National Hurricane Center expects Dolly to become a tropical depression later today, but also forecasts possible isolated tornadoes spawned by the system over south central Texas. The closest distance between the center of Hurricane Dolly and Brownsville, Texas, was roughly 30-32 miles, and because the storm tracked to the north, the city was spared the storm’s strongest winds. Nevertheless, at landfall, tropical storm force winds extended outward some 140 miles from the eye, lashing a broad swath of the coast near the Texas/Mexico border with strong winds and heavy rain. In Texas, some 190,000 customers lost power yesterday, including 10,000 on South Padre Island, which bore the brunt of Dolly’s hurricane force winds. The main street of the resort island was flooded, and a section of its City Hall roof was stripped away. Dolly destroyed street signs and downed power lines. Some units at the Bahia Mar Resort were destroyed. In Brownsville, downed trees and shredded roofing materials litter the ground today, and some homes are flooded. To the west of Brownsville, in the Rio Grande Valley, Dolly destroyed a large portion of the cotton crop. Fortunately the levees along the Rio Grande, which officials had feared would break, remained intact. The AIR tropical cyclone team has developed scenarios for insured losses in the US caused by Hurricane Dolly. These are now posted on the Scenarios page of this website. Also included on the Scenarios page is AIR's probability of loss exceedance curve for the industry. Note that the loss estimates provided in this posting include wind losses to US onshore properties only. CLASIC/2 and CATRADER users can now download event sets from the Events Sets page. Users should be aware of a recently identified CATRADER issue that impacts use of the "All simulated scenarios" event set in CATRADER. The issue does not affect the "Select simulated scenarios" event set of 11 scenarios. While CLFs are not compatible with ALERT event sets , the "All simulated scenarios" event set is improperly associating losses from some CLFs for programs set to "Use CLF only" or "Use CLF +sums insured" with Dolly scenarios. Until the issue is resolved, when running the "All simulated scenarios" event set in CATRADER, AIR recommends setting the Mkt. Shares drop down on the CATRADER analysis screen to "Based on sums insured." This analysis option will override the individual program settings. Please contact AIR Client Services if you have questions related to this issue.

Post Landfall 1 | Downloads
Posting Date: July 24, 2008, 2:30:00 PM