Scholar Promotes New Approach To Predicting Hurricane Damage
Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 Catastrophe Insurance IndustryTriple-I non-residential scholar Phil Klotzbach has proposed what he says is a better way to predict hurricane damage than the wind scale currently in use.
Speaking at National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Fla., the Colorado State University research scientist recommended using barometric pressure instead of the Saffir-Simpson wind-based scale.
‘Wind hasn’t worked recently,’ said Klotzbach, a CSU meteorology professor. ‘It’s not bad, but pressure actually does (predict) better.’
Klotzbach is not the only person supporting a movement of using pressure over wind, and this was not the first time he had pitched the idea. During the 2020 hurricane season, Klotzbach and other meteorological scholars, published a paper about the subject, but it was overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Klotzbach said.
According to the paper, several scales have been proposed to replace Saffir-Simpson, but most aren’t easily calculated in real time, nor can they be reliably calculated historically.
