Synthetic Storm Simulation for Wind Risk Assessment

Two methods are described to generate synthetic hurricane event sets and assess risk from the probability distribution of hurricane events. The first track method uses a Markov chain built from historical records to generate a large number of synthetic tracks, while the second generates storms that move with time-varying synthetic winds whose kinetic energy follows a geostrophic turbulence spectral frequency distribution and whose statistics match NCEP re-analysis data. For a given point in space, a large number (~10⁴) of synthetic tracks can be generated that pass within a specified distance of a point of interest or which cross specified line segments. For each of these tracks, a deterministic, coupled, numerical simulation of the storm's intensity is carried out. The track and intensity data are finally used together with a vortex structure model to construct probability distributions of wind speed at fixed points in space.