Hurricane Dolly (US)

Pre-Landfall 1 | Summary
Posting Date: July 22, 2008, 10:53:00 AM

Tropical Storm Dolly is expected to make landfall near the border between Texas and Mexico sometime tomorrow morning as a Category 1 hurricane. As of the National Hurricane Center’s 11:00 A.M. EDT advisory, Dolly was 230 miles southeast of Brownsville, moving northwest toward the Mexico/Texas coast at about 12 mph. Maximum sustained winds have increased to about 70 mph with higher gusts. Tropical storm-force winds (40 mph and higher) extend outward to 160 miles. Minimum central pressure is currently estimated at 991 millibars. The NHC has issued a hurricane warning for the Texas coast from Brownsville to Corpus Christi, as well as a tropical storm warning from north of Corpus Christi to San Luis Pass, south of Galveston. The Mexican government has also issued a hurricane warning for the area from Rio San Fernando north to the Texas border. In advance of the storm’s arrival, Texas Governor Rick Perry has mobilized 1200 National Guard troops and other emergency workers. Officials indicated that evacuations would not be ordered unless Dolly strengthens to a Category 3 hurricane, which is unlikely. The NHC estimates only a 3% chance of this happening in the next 24 hours—the period during which Dolly is expected to hit the coast. Dolly will bring four to eight inches of rain over much of south Texas and northeastern Mexico over the next few days, with as many as 15 inches in some areas. Near and to the north of where Dolly's center makes landfall, coastal storm surge flooding of four to six feet above normal tide levels is forecast, along with large waves. Local residents throughout the area are preparing for heavy winds and rain. The region where Dolly is expected to hit, the Rio Grande Valley, has a population of about two million people and includes many summer beach resort areas, including South Padre Island. Officials there are prepared to evacuate residents in flood-prone areas and have urged RV owners on South Padre to move to higher ground. South Padre Island remains under a hurricane watch and winds of at least 35 mph are expected there as early as tonight. The largest concentrations of exposure along the NHC’s most likely track are the sister cities of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Both cities are some 20-25 miles inland from the coast, which will serve to mitigate losses. Further mitigating insured losses in Mexico will be the low percentage of residential properties actually insured (commercial take-up rates are significantly higher). Dolly is most likely to pass south and west of the largest concentration of American oil platforms. Pemex, the Mexican state oil company, said that the storm is expected to pass far from its platforms. Europe's biggest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell, evacuated about 125 workers from oil platforms on Sunday. They removed 60 more yesterday. Insured losses to offshore platforms will likely be driven by business interruption due to pre-storm evacuations. Dolly crossed over Mexico's Yucatan peninsula yesterday, July 21, making landfall at about 2:00 A.M. local time (3:00 A.M. EDT) just south of Cancun. It brought sustained winds of about 50 mph. Some evacuations and ferry traffic suspensions were ordered in the state of Quintana Roo, a popular tourist region. However, no significant damage resulted. The most recent hurricanes to hit this region were Emily in 2005 and Bret in 1999. They made landfall north and south, respectively, of Dolly’s expected landfall location. Category 3 Emily brought major flooding and heavy wind damage to the northeast coast of Mexico; storm surge destroyed more than 80% of buildings in Laguna Madre, a fishing village under hurricane watch today. In Texas, little damage was reported apart from some downed trees and power outages. Hurricane Bret, also a Category 3 storm, made landfall in Texas in sparsely populated Kennedy County between Brownsville and Corpus Christi, bringing torrential rains up to 14 inches. Despite its intensity at landfall, however, the remote location meant that insured losses were minimal. ISO’s Property Claim Services unit estimated insured losses at just $30 million. The AIR tropical cyclone team has developed possible scenarios for Hurricane Dolly using the latest information about the storm’s current and forecast meteorological parameters, as well as its forecast track. Eleven of 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 U.S. onshore properties only. AIR will issue loss estimates for all exposed areas in both the U.S. and Mexico after landfall. Also, note that the NHC assigns a 30% probability that Tropical Storm Dolly will make landfall as a tropical storm. The AIR U.S. Hurricane Model does not generate losses for storms that make landfall at less than hurricane strength. Thus clients will see scenarios that generate zero losses in the U.S. These may be either from storms that make landfall sufficiently far south (in Mexico) that U.S. properties are unaffected, or by tropical storms making landfall near or in Texas. CATRADER and CLASIC/2 clients can download the event set representing the posted scenarios for U.S. losses only. Both “All” and “Select” event sets are provided. The “All” event sets contains hundreds of scenarios simulated for this event and are therefore the most appropriate method for estimating your potential losses. Note that the “All” event set includes even extremely low probability scenarios. Sets of 11 specific scenarios, which are selected from the full event sets and represent the range of potential losses across the full industry loss distribution, are available under the “Select” event sets.

Pre-Landfall 1 | Downloads
Posting Date: July 22, 2008, 10:53:00 AM