The AEF Hurricane Index > Product Specifications

What is the AEF Hurricane Index?

• The AEF Hurricane Index is a regional measure of the "climate-conditioned" hurricane risk relative to the average risk.
• The Index is designed to quantify the regional "clustering" of seasonal hurricane hazard risk, moving well beyond the more traditional seasonal forecasts of average hurricane activity over the entire Atlantic Basin.
• Index values are provided through a web-based interactive tool that allows the user to access the current and/or forecasted Hurricane Index in user-specified regions.
• The Index is updated monthly based upon the official Atlantic SST, El Niño, El Niño trend, and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) climate model forecasts at those times.
  • The first predictions for the upcoming hurricane season will be released in December when Atlantic SST, El Niño, and El Niño trend forecasts become available.

How to use the AEF Hurricane Index

The interactive web-based graphical interface allows the user flexibility in choosing the:

1.  hurricane intensity as measured by the maximum wind speed.

2.  geographical region of interest. Users have a number of options for quickly accessing the data

• by using the MAP option to select a rectangular region of interest, or
• by directly entering a city name, zip code, lat-lon point, or simply clicking on the map.

Once the user has selected the required parameters (see figures 1 below), the graphical interface produces Hurricane Index values that describe the relative risk of a hurricane impact for the forecasted climate regime.

The user also has the ability to set the desired Confidence Level (in terms of a percentage). Based on it, the Confidence Interval is then calculated, providing lower and upper bounds of the Hurricane Index. In addition, the Significance Level is also returned, providing a measure of how certain we are that the Hurricane Index value is different from the long-term average (or climatology). Finally, the model P-value, which grades the reliability of the presented assessment of the climate influence on hurricane frequency and severity, is returned.

Figure 1
Screenshot of AEF Hurricane Index
(click image to enlarge)

Example 1: Calculating the Hurricane Index for the Region Surrounding Atlanta, Georgia

The following example illustrates how the user might interact with the web-based graphical interface.

In this example, the Hurricane Index for hurricanes of Cat 1- Cat 5 intensity is 1.3, indicating a 30% elevated hurricane risk in this region for this climate. With a 90% confidence, the Hurricane Index will be between 0.93 and 1.54, with the mostly likely value being 1.3. The Significance Level indicates that we are 95% confident that this risk is higher than the long-term average. The P-value of 0.04 indicates a 4% chance of the diagnosed signal being false, or a 96% chance of it being a reliable estimate of how climate has and will influence hurricane activity.

Would you like to bring this powerful risk assessment tool to your company in preparation for the upcoming hurricane season? Please contact us for more information.

For more information about the AEF Hurricane Index, please visit our Overview and Highlights section. Or, to see the AEF Hurricane Index in action, please view our Examples page.