Windstorm Niklas to cost German insurers 750 million euros

Reuters: German insurers are likely to face damage claims of around 750 million euros ($808 million) from windstorm "Niklas", which struck the country on March 31, insurance trade body GDV said on Monday.

That would make Niklas, which entailed wind speeds of up to 192 kilometers (119 miles) per hour, one of the five most costly storms to hit the country in the last 15 years, the GDV said of its estimate, which is preliminary.

Germany's third-largest insurer Talanx on Monday said it had penciled in a cost in the low double-digit million euro range from the storm and said this did not include claims faced by its subsidiary, reinsurer Hannover Re....

Red weather warnings issued as 100mph winds head towards UK

The Guardian (UK): The Met Office has issued a rare red warning because of exceptionally strong winds that could reach 100mph in west Wales and north-west England.

It said that winds in areas affected by the warning, which means take action, will reach 80mph over a wide area on Wednesday and pose a risk of structural damage, bringing down trees and leading to loss of power supplies. Additionally, coastal areas could be hit by large waves.

Gale-force winds of up to 80mph are expected in southern Englan
d, creating an additional hazard for communities that have borne the worst of the flooding. The Met Office is also predicting a further spell of widespread rain, with a risk of 40mm on high ground of south Wales and south-west England, which it says will "exacerbate the current flooding situation"

Shipping in the Shannon sea area, south-west of Ireland, have been warned of hurricane force winds.

Amid intense criticism of the response to the flooding, David Cameron said on Tuesday that money was "no object" in tackling the crisis. But on Wednesday, the government sought to qualify the commitment, with the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, insisting that there would be no blank cheque....

Storm damage in Aberstwyth, January 2014, shot by Ian Capper, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

AIR estimates insured losses from last week’s European windstorm Christian at between EUR 1.5 billion and EUR 2.3 billion

AIR Worldwide: Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimates that insured losses from Windstorm Christian (known as St. Jude in the UK) will range between EUR 1.5 billion and EUR 2.3 billion, with the majority of insured losses occurring in Denmark and Germany. Significant insured losses also occurred in the Netherlands, France, UK, and Sweden.

“Windstorm Christian smashed into southern Britain on Monday, October 28, knocking down trees, flooding lowlands, and disrupting travel over land, sea, and air,” said Gerhard Zuba, senior principal scientist at AIR Worldwide. “Gusts of 160 km/h (100 mph) were reported on the Isle of Wight in southern England, and waves greater than 7.5 meters (25 feet) were reported elsewhere along the coast.”

According to AIR, after striking the UK, the storm moved north and east, hitting France, the Netherlands, northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia with similar force, and across the Baltic Sea to Latvia and Estonia, where the storm weakened. The Ile d’Ouessant, Finistere, France, reported a gust of 133 km/h (83 mph); the Netherlands gusts of 90 to 130 km/h (56 to 81 mph) along the Ijsselmeer coast; and southern Denmark the strongest wind recorded in the country’s history—a gust of 194.4 km/h (120.8 mph). By Tuesday morning, Windstorm Christian had dissipated considerably as it moved to Sweden's east coast and out toward the Baltic Sea, although hurricane-force gusts of over 115 km/h were measured on the Baltic islands of Oland and Gotland.

Dr. Zuba noted, “October is usually a quiet month for windstorms in Europe. Nevertheless, the overall atmospheric conditions were favorable for storms to impact the UK and northern Europe. The damage from storms during this time of year can be more severe than storms that develop later because many trees still have leaves on their branches, making branches more likely to break off and become airborne missiles, and also making trees more likely to topple. Further, Christian, powered by the temperature gradient between cold polar air and warm subtropical air, strengthened as it traveled over the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany.”...

Damage from the windstorm, October 28, 2013, shot by Richard Symonds,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

UK Storm: Power cut continues at 15,000 homes in East

BBC: About 15,000 properties in the east of England are still without electricity after storms earlier this week. Winds of up to 80mph (129kmh) on Monday brought down trees and power lines, causing what UK Power Networks said was "extensive" damage.

At the height of the storm, 300,000 households in the region had no power. UK Power Networks said up to 8,000 properties were without power in Suffolk, 6,800 in Essex and 200 in Hertfordshire, as of 07:00 GMT.

It said Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire were "back to normal" on Tuesday. Most rail services resumed on Wednesday after two days of delays and cancellations.

Greater Anglia said it worked with Network Rail and had to deal with 230 fallen trees and several overhead wire problems....

Stormy weather in the UK from 2008, shot by Mat Fascione, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Storm batters Europe

CNN: The cleanup operation continued Tuesday, a day after a major Atlantic storm pummeled England, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, killing at least 13 people. Hurricane-force winds early Monday caused major disruption to travel and power supplies.

In Britain, 61,000 homes remained without electricity Tuesday, after power was restored to 100,000 properties overnight, said Tim Field, a spokesman for the Energy Networks Association, which represents British and Irish power operators.

 4 killed, thousands lose power in storm CNN reporter in 80mph UK storm Major storm hits the UK Overall, 605,000 properties have been reconnected, he told CNN. Energy companies said they were working to restore power as quickly as possible.

Rail services were largely running again across southern England on Tuesday, a day after fallen trees caused chaos as they blocked rail lines and roads. London's Heathrow Airport, where the number of flights was reduced Monday because of the severe weather, said operations were returning to normal Tuesday.

At least two storm-related deaths were confirmed Monday in England, and a third person was missing after being swept out to sea...

Storm kills three in UK and Netherlands, shuts down power, trains

Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Rhys Jones in Reuters: A strong storm battered Britain and the Netherlands on Monday, killing three people, cutting power and forcing hundreds of plane and train cancellations as it moved on across mainland Europe. Winds of up to 99 miles per hour (160 km per hour) lashed southern England and Wales, disrupting the travel plans of millions of commuters - the worst storm recorded in Britain in a decade.

A 17-year-old girl was killed when a tree fell onto her home while she slept in the county of Kent, southeast of London, while a man in his 50s was killed when a tree crushed his car in the town of Watford, just north of the capital.

 Thin volumes on London's financial markets suggested many traders had been stuck at home. A crane smashed into the Cabinet Office, a ministry in the heart of London, forcing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to cancel a press conference.

Heavy winds also swept across the low-lying Netherlands, uprooting trees and shutting down all train traffic to Amsterdam. They were forecast to peak at more than 130 kph by early afternoon. A woman was killed and two people were seriously hurt by falling trees in the Dutch capital and a ferry carrying 1,000 people from the English city of Newcastle was unable to dock in the port of IJmuiden and returned to sea, RTL television said.

Fifty flights at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport were cancelled and Rotterdam Port, Europe's busiest, said incoming and outgoing vessels were delayed. In France, winds topping 100 kph struck the north and northwest, felling trees, whipping up seas and cutting power supplies to around 75,000 homes, according to the ERDF electricity distribution company....

Tropical Storm Gabrielle in close pass to Bermuda

Josh Ball in ABC News via Associated Press: Tropical Storm Gabrielle hit at Bermuda with wind, rain and rough surf early Wednesday as its center passed near the wealthy British territory, a day after reforming over the Atlantic.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm's center was about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west-southwest of Bermuda early Wednesday and moving northward with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph).

Government authorities had urged people in the storm-hardened Atlantic territory to finish last-minute preparations, and some residents left work early. Customers crowded into supermarkets to buy candles, batteries and other emergency supplies.

"Gabrielle has proven somewhat unpredictable and so I caution everyone to take this storm seriously and to prepare for the forecast conditions," Public Safety Minister Michael Dunkley said.

The territory suspended ferry service Tuesday afternoon as wind and rain picked up, and officials announced that schools would be closed Wednesday. Airline flights were cancelled Tuesday....

The track of Tropical Storm Gabrielle, created by Supportstorm, which has released the map into the public domain

Tropical Storm Trami lashes Taiwan

Terra Daily via AFP: Tropical Storm Trami battered Taiwan with strong winds and torrential rains on Wednesday, forcing authorities to close offices and call off nearly 200 international flights.

The Central Weather Bureau said although the storm, 100 kilometres (62 miles) north-northeast of Taipei at 0930 GMT, was likely to miss the island, it would generate more heavy rainfall in the day ahead.

The bureau urged the public to be vigilant as the storm could even produce "cloudbursts" -- more than 100 mm of rain per hour -- in some areas. Persistent torrential rains could lead to landslides in mountainous areas and flooding, it warned.

The storm has dumped up to 400 mm (16 inches) of rain in some northern parts of the island since Tuesday, the bureau said, adding that the volume could surge to one metre (40 inches)....

Severe Tropical Storm Trami on August 18, 2013.  This image comes from NASA

Flossie weakens to tropical depression on Hawaii approach

Yee Kai Pin and Matthew Brown in Bloomberg: Flossie weakened to a depression as it neared the Hawaiian Islands, while tropical-storm warnings were discontinued.

The system, with top winds of 35 miles (56 kilometers) per hour, was 65 miles north-northwest of Honolulu and 270 miles northwest of Hilo at about 11 p.m. local time yesterday, according to an advisory from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu. It was moving west-northwest at 18 mph.

Flossie had threatened to become the first major system to strike Hawaii in 21 years. The state hasn’t been hit by a tropical storm or hurricane since Hurricane Iniki in 1992, said Kristina Pydynowski, a meteorologist at AccuWeather.com, a forecaster in State College, Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Coast Guard re-opened the ports of Hilo and Kawaihae on the Big Island at 1 p.m. yesterday, while keeping the port of Kahului, Maui closed, it said in a statement on its website yesterday...

Tropical Storm Flossie over Hawaii on July 29, 2013, shot by those storm-tossed mad folk at NASA

Strong nor’easter targets devastated Northeast

Burlington Free Press (Vermont): This is probably almost the worst possible news, but a nor’easter seems more and more likely to hit areas of the Northeast devastated by Superstorm Sandy. The upcoming storm, set to hit Wednesday and Thursday, won’t be nearly as strong as Sandy. If forecasts hold,  the size of the expected nor’easter under normal conditions would be enough to cause relatively minor coastal flooding and erosion, cut power to some people and create minor flooding in the Northeast.

The problem is, this isn’t a normal situation. Sandy wiped away sand dunes, making coastal areas more prone to a nor’easter’s storm surge than usual. It’s not like New York City’s subways will flood again, but Sandy-wrecked coastal communities all along the Northeast Coast face the risk of more flooding and more damage. Water is high in Northeast rivers, and the electrical grid won’t be put back in place by Wednesday, so the storm will create more issues, too.

The physical and psychological effects on storm victims is something to consider, too. In addition to everything else, all these people will have to deal with cold, wind and gales as they try to put their lives back together again.

The computer model that had the best forecasts for Sandy has the nor’easter stronger and closer to the coast than many other models. Let’s hope the accurate model is wrong for once. Up here in Vermont, the predicted nor’easter could give us our first real bout of winter weather. It did snow some in mid and high elevations of Vermont Friday night and Saturday, but it didn’t amount to too much...

A stranded water tanker on Staten Island, shot by Thomas Altfather Good, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Swiss Re’s natural catastrophes tally for 2011 reaches $116 billion in insured losses and record economic losses of $370 billion

From Swiss Re, a press release announcing the natural catastrophe issue of sigma. This is an annual tabulation of disaster losses, with great effort put into keeping the data consistent:

• Last year saw the highest economic losses in history, at USD 370 billion
• The insurance industry weathered 2011 soundly despite experiencing the second-largest insured losses ever, at USD 116 billion
• 2011 also brought the highest insured earthquake losses, at USD 49 billion
• Flooding in Thailand resulted in the highest insured losses ever for a single flood event, at USD 12 billion

Swiss Re’s latest sigma study reveals unprecedented economic losses of USD 370 billion from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 2011. Despite immense insured losses of USD 116 billion (a 142% increase over the previous year) arising from record earthquake and flood losses, the insurance industry weathered the year well and played a key role in risk management and post-disaster recovery financing.

In 2011, total economic losses to society due to disasters (both insured and uninsured) reached an estimated USD 370 billion, compared to USD 226 billion in 2010. The earthquake in Japan, the largest known in terms of magnitude to have ever hit the country, accounted for 57% of 2011’s economic losses. Altogether, natural catastrophe insured losses came to around USD 110 billion, while losses from man-made disasters were around USD 6 billion, making 2011 the second-highest catastrophe loss year ever for the insurance industry.

Kurt Karl, Swiss Re’s Chief Economist, says: “Last year saw extraordinary and devastating catastrophic events. The earthquakes in Japan, New Zealand, and Turkey, as well as the floods in Australia and Thailand, were unprecedented and brought not only massive destruction but also the loss of thousands of people’s lives. Yet two-thirds of the staggering USD 370 billion in economic damage will be shouldered by corporations, governments, relief organisations, and ultimately individuals, pointing to the still widespread lack of insurance protection worldwide.”

...The floods in Australia, the country’s worst natural disaster ever in terms of losses, triggered insured claims of over USD 2 billion. However, at USD 12 billion, insured claims from the flood in Thailand are the highest ever recorded for a river water flood event. “Flood losses can be just as tremendous as earthquake and storm losses. The flooding in Thailand is a painful reminder that, given the high risk of flooding in many countries, other parts of the globe could be prone to similar or even bigger losses,” says Jens Mehlhorn, Head of Flood Perils at Swiss Re and co-author of the study.

In addition to earthquakes and floods, an unparalleled tornado season in the US caused insured catastrophe losses of over USD 25 billion. “Despite the exceptional tornadoes and Hurricane Irene, a relatively moderate hurricane season kept overall insured losses in the US lower than the record year of 2005, the year in which hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita contributed the lion’s share of that year's total global claims of USD 123 billion,” adds Bevere....

Cleanup begins in southern California

Disaster News Network via UPI: Southern California began assessing damage and cleaning up Friday as the wind that scoured the region this week calmed somewhat.
Pasadena was especially hard hit, with more than 400 trees down, the Los Angeles Times reported. City officials declared a state of emergency, and schools remained closed Friday.

In San Marino, 11 houses were damaged, including three declared unfit for occupancy until repairs are done. Much of Live Oak Avenue in Temple City was impassible because of downed power lines and poles.

...The National Weather Service predicted gusty winds in the Los Angeles area for much of the weekend. But forecasters said Friday night would be calm and wind speeds would top out at about 45 mph Saturday.

The wind storm that began late Wednesday had the strength of a hurricane. On Mammoth Mountain, the top speed was at least 150 mph....

A schematic Santa Ana wind created by Piotr Flatau

More flooding expected as Lee nears Alabama

CBS News: Tropical Storm Lee - downgraded to a tropical depression - has dropped a foot of rain in some places, spreading the risk of flash flooding as it heads north, especially in Louisiana. The storm left 13 inches in New Orleans and 15 inches in the metro areas, and spawned tornadoes in Lilliana.

Jackson, Miss., has gotten more than ten inches of rain. The storm is expected to bring between four and eight inches of rain as it crosses over into Alabama tomorrow. CBS News correspondent Bigad Shaban reporting Monday from Crown Point, La., said while the storm is expected to die down this morning, coastal communities are suffering the effects of storm surge, turning homes into tiny islands.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told "The Early Show" that water is still coming over the levee there. "Highway 23 is completely underwater, cut our parish in half," he said. Nungesser said it was not as bad as Hurricane Katrina, but said that with water pounding on the levee for three days, "it was inevitable the levee would be overtopped. " He said about 5,000 people were stranded in South Plaquemine.

While Lee's winds have lost some of their punch, forecasters warn that its slow-moving rain clouds pose a worse flooding threat to inland areas with hills or mountains in the coming days....

Tropical Storm Lee on September 3, 2011, just off the coast of Louisiana

Tropical Storm Lee to dump heavy rain across metro Atlanta

Mike Morris in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A flash flood watch has been posted for north Georgia as forecasters are predicting that the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee could bring the area as much as a half foot of rain.

The flood watch, meaning that conditions may develop that could lead to flooding, is in effect from late Sunday night through Tuesday.

"Widespread rain with embedded thunderstorms is expected to develop over north and central Georgia as Tropical Storm Lee moves northeast from the Louisiana coast and interacts with a cold front drifting southward from the Ohio and Tennessee Valley region," the Weather Service said in a statement issued early Sunday. "This precipitation will likely begin this afternoon and persist through Tuesday."

The Weather Service said that 5 to 7 inches of rain could fall from the northern suburbs of Atlanta northward, with 3 to 5 inches possible as far south as a LaGrange to Eatonton to Washington line, before the rain begins to taper off early Tuesday.

The leading edge of the rain was approaching the southern suburbs late Sunday morning, with heavier rain moving northeastward through southern Alabama...

Storm map from NOAA's website

US flood victims still in the dark, stuck in mud

Scott Malone in Reuters: Residents of several Northeast states approached the Labor Day holiday weekend mired in mud and stuck in the dark on Thursday nearly a week after Hurricane Irene swallowed parts of the region with flooding. About 1.1 million homes and businesses on the East Coast were still without electricity after Irene knocked out power to more than 6.7 million customers on its rampage last Saturday and Sunday.

The upcoming long weekend, normally a celebration of the end of summer, will be a wet, stinky mess for hundreds of thousands of homeowners who suffered damage, their cities and towns submerged under floodwaters in states such as New York, New Jersey and Vermont. Hundreds of people were rescued in Paterson, New Jersey, one of several New York City suburbs that were under water while the city itself went relatively unscathed some 20 miles away.

In Vermont, the National Guard airlifted food and water to towns cut off by storm-damaged highways. Upstate New York saw rural mountain resorts flooded, ruining business for the holiday weekend. "Everything smells like sewer because the water got up so high. It stinks so bad," Melody Hawkins, 55, said as she sat on the stoop of her home in Ludlow, one of more than a dozen towns in Vermont -- an inland state normally protected from tropical storms -- to face severe flooding....

At 11:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on August 28, Irene finally became a post-tropical cyclone near the U.S.-Canadian border, the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported. NASA image

Deadly tropical storm makes landfall in China

Voice of America: Tropical Storm Nanmadol made landfall in southeastern China early Wednesday, striking Fujian province with maximum winds of 72 kilometers an hour. Authorities say there have been no immediate reports of casualties in China despite the death and destruction caused by Nanmadol in Taiwan and the Philippines.

Forecasters expect the storm to linger over the region for the next few days and produce heavy amounts of rain. Authorities canceled some flights and shut down a shipping lane between Taiwan and the mainland in advance of the storm's arrival.

Officials in the Philippines say 22 people were killed by floods and mudslides triggered by the storm, which struck with hurricane-force winds last week...

Tropical Storm Arlene drenches eastern Mexico

AFP: Strong wind and heavy rain lashed much of eastern Mexico Thursday as Tropical Storm Arlene made landfall at near hurricane strength, whipping up Gulf waves large enough to force area ports to shut down. Ports in Veracruz state were closed due to waves reaching six meters (20 feet) in height, the local Civil Protection office reported.

The US National Hurricane Center said at 1500 GMT that Arlene, the first named Atlantic storm of the season, barreled ashore at Cabo Rojo, a cape just off the mainland in Veracruz state, packing sustained winds of 100 kilometers (65 miles) per hour, with higher gusts.

With the storm pushing inland, "weakening is forecast during the next 24 to 36 hours, and Arlene is expected to dissipate over the mountains of central Mexico by Friday," said the Miami-based NHC, which monitors cyclone activity.

Arlene was forecast to dump between four and eight inches (10-20 centimeters) of rain over eastern Mexico, with isolated maximum amounts of 15 inches (38 centimeters) over mountainous terrain. The NHC warned in a bulletin that the rain "could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides."

Mexico's navy and army opened 398 shelters Thursday and were monitoring area rivers for possible flooding, officials said. In the central state of Puebla, the heavy rain triggered landslides that damaged homes and blocked highways, local officials reported....

Tropical Storm Arlene on June 29, from NASA

Is insurance up to the task of disasters?

An editorial in the Clarion-Ledger delves into a knotty insurance issue: U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is looking in the right direction in seeking federal legislation to clarify wind vs. water issues in hurricane insurance. But his proposed legislation may not go far enough. Wicker's proposed bill would establish a formula to determine property losses caused by wind or by water in hurricanes, and the formula would apply only in cases where structures are left as slabs.

The wind-versus-water disputes led to lengthy lawsuits in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. As Wicker noted, after meeting with Southern insurance commissioners last week, including Mississippi's Mike Chaney and fellow members of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the awards from Katrina-related court cases over wind vs. water damages were inconsistent by insurers and for victims.

Wicker's proposal - the Consumer Option for an Alternative System to Allocate Losses (COASTAL Act) would provide consistency, which could bring more stability to the insurance marketplace and encourage companies to write in those regions.

The urgency for action is increasing. Extreme weather phenomena have greatly impacted the United States in recent years including floods and associated landslides, hurricanes and associated ocean surges, tornadoes, heat waves, droughts and forest fires….

September 6, 2005 -- Destroyed houses in Gulfport, Mississippi, where Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage. FEMA/Mark Wolfe

More thunderstorms and tornado threats in central US

Reuters: Thunderstorms with hail and high winds in spots will keep the central United States wet and windy on Friday with risks of potential tornadoes rising into the afternoon and evening, meteorologists said.

One band of thunderstorms will move from Missouri and Illinois along the Ohio River across Indiana into Ohio and parts of Kentucky. Another system will hit southwest Missouri and Oklahoma and possibly into north Texas.

Thursday's weather was a relative respite, despite wind damage in parts of Utah and isolated hail storms in Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, said forecaster John Hart at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center….

Thunderstorm from 1982, via NOAA

Killer tornadoes claim 44 lives across southern US states

Environment News Service: From Thursday through Saturday, tornadoes ripped across communities of the southern United States from Oklahoma to North Carolina leaving at least 44 people dead in their wake. A total of 241 tornadoes in 14 states were reported over the three-day period.

This tornado outbreak ranks "among the largest in history," said Accuweather meteorologist Meghan Evans. Late Saturday night, the storms moved offshore, and the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma is forecasting no organized areas of severe thunderstorms across the country today.

The deadly storms first struck Thursday in Oklahoma, where two people were killed. As they blew across the country seven people died in Alabama; seven people in Arkansas; seven in Virginia; and one in Mississippi, officials said.

In North Carolina, the state hardest hit, the estimated death toll has been revised down to 22 from 23, according to unconfirmed reports from communities across North Carolina. About 130 people are reported as injured, with most transported to hospitals for care.

A large tornado whirled through downtown Raleigh, North Carolina's capital city, on Saturday, cutting a wide swath of destruction. Governor Bev Perdue has declared a state of emergency for North Carolina, putting the state's emergency management plan into action and providing financial resources for communities affected by the storms….

Bill Reckert took this 1998 photo after the 1998 North Carolina tornado in Stoneville, NC