HWind

Overview of RMS HWind

(Re)insurers, brokers, capital markets, academia, and government agencies rely on HWind products in a variety of use cases (or applications), including real-time event preparation and response, post-event hazard and loss assessments and validation against past experience, and research.

Stay Ahead of the Storm

Understand forecast track, timing, intensity, and uncertainty across multiple forecast scenarios up to 5-days before impact, to inform proactive preparation strategies.

Time-Sensitive Insights

Quantify potential hazard and loss impacts, anticipate likely claims, deploy adjusters effectively, and provide frequent updates for internal and external reporting

Optimize for the Future

Validate historical claims and loss experience for custom or internal views of risk, or improve event response processes for future events.

HWind Real-Time Analysis

Real-time tropical cyclone data leading up to, during, and following the storm’s passage.

Forecasting

5-day forecast track scenarios, wind and storm surge footprints, and wind probability analytics made available multiple times per day (up to 6x) once an Atlantic tropical cyclone is named

Snapshots

Instantaneous views of the tropical cyclone track and hazard characteristics produced every 6 hours throughout the storm’s life cycle

Cumulative Footprints

Wind field footprint produced on a rolling, cumulative basis every 6 hours over the lifetime of the storm, leveraging all preceding snapshot analyses

Post-Event Footprints

Full wind field footprint and track produced 1-3 days after landfall, based on expert review of all available data used during and after the event

HWind Enhanced Archive

A catalog of 25+ years of high-resolution images, snapshots, and footprints from historical hurricanes

Same HWind Framework

Informed by the same underlying science as the HWind Real-Time Analysis offerings

Additional Data

Incorporates new, revised, or reprocessed data sources and track information made available after the event

Reduced Uncertainty

Informed by additional analysis iterations to match observational data and create the best representation of a storm’s track and hazard profile over time

Continuously Growing

Library is updated annually as new data becomes available and new storms occur

Spotlight

Unmatched Scientific Credibility

Backed by hundreds of citations in peer-reviewed publications across a variety of research fields, HWind data is used by researchers and scientists for numerous applications, including numerical weather prediction model validation, and as inputs for storm surge and wave models.

Release of HWind Forecasting Products (2019)

“Powered by a combination of HWind real-time observational data feeds, real-time track forecast data, and the RMS North Atlantic Hurricane modeling framework, our new forecasting products help the market gain earlier insights into potential hazard and loss impacts before landfall, informing key, time-critical decisions as the event unfolds."

Jeff Waters

Sr. Product Manager, North Atlantic Hurricane Models, RMS

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Unrivalled Insight and Detail

HWind products reflect wind field characteristics with more frequency, accuracy, and granularity than publicly available sources, including the National Hurricane Center.

HWind datasets incorporate unique wind field analysis metrics developed by HWind scientists, such as Integrated Kinetic Energy, a globally recognized index for measuring tropical cyclone size and intensity, and a proven alternative to the Saffir-Simpson Scale.

Unparalleled Suite of Observational Data Sources

HWind incorporates the most comprehensive set of observational data sources in the market. The mix or private and public data feeds span more than thirty land, air, and sea-based platforms including aircraft reconnaissance, dropsondes, airborne Doppler radar wind measurements, buoys, satellites, and coastal observation networks. As of 2019, HWind also incorporates data from more than 10 types of deterministic and ensemble forecasting models.

HWind Legacy Archive

RMS hosts a publicly-available legacy version of HWind archive data, which contains products from historical events through 2013, developed while HWind was a public entity under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For more information on how to access this data, please click the link below.

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Resources

Satellite image of a hurricane approaching North America

RMS HWind: Advances in Real Time Hurricane Guidance and…

As we move into the third month of the current hurricane season in the tropical North Atlantic, it has been a busy start with a record nine named storms to date. Thankfully, none of these events have been particularly intense or damaging, but this may change as the season reaches its climatological peak. Many of the latest forecasts continue to suggest that warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures will persist and La Niña conditions emerge during…

RMS + Artemis: HWind Interview