Citation

Lee KH, Rosowsky DV. Nat. Hazards Rev. 2007; 8(2): 22-34.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, American Society of Civil Engineers)

DOI

10.1061/(ASCE)1527-6988(2007)8:2(23)

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A database of synthetic hurricane wind speeds is developed for a region of the southeastern United States comprising South Carolina, North Carolina, and eastern Virginia. For each zip code in the study region, the database includes a time index (year), duration of strong winds, and peak surface wind speeds (both gust and sustained). Synthetic wind speed records for 15,000 years are developed using an event-based simulation approach (a modeling approach in which each hurricane is simulated as a discrete stochastic event) based on the empirical tracking and central pressure models proposed by Vickery et al. in 2002. The Vickery model considers storm formation and movement including time-varying central pressure from anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean including the Gulf of Mexico. An improved decay model is developed based specifically on statistical analysis of historical hurricane central pressure data from the study region. The results are stored in a database which can be easily mined for site and region-specific hurricane hazard analyses as well as short- and long-term risk studies. Surface wind speed time-histories also were developed at each zip code for a number of recent hurricanes including Fran (1996), Bonnie (1998), Dennis (1999), Floyd (1999), Isabel (2003), and Charley (2004). The wind speed database for these historical hurricanes may be useful for developing hurricane damage (loss) models.