Insurance Strategy – AccuWeather forecasts (edited continuously)

Published on: Apr 21, 2023 at 20:48 PST

Kyle Langan

Seasonal expectations

Example: AccuWeather’s 2023 US Wildfire Forecast. Forecasts break up years into seasons naturally and use their experience to account for things like “increased exposure in a few hot spots” and make predictions with a practical touch, not just following models. [1] In a forecast, readers can prepare for frozen water pipes that may arrive with a storm like in March 1993, or the Santa Ana winds, which caused fiery devastation at the start of 2025.

Southern California

Santa Ana Season: October – February

During dry times, “lightning from the North American monsoon can be a natural ignition source for fires, while the Santa Ana winds can fan the flames of ongoing blazes and cause them to evolve rapidly into massive wildfires.” [2]

In 2023, California saw one of the deepest snowpacks in state history, but AccuWeather warned that it would not prevent fires from starting. [3]  One of the concerns following that season was the total amount of combustible material. [4] Precipitation led to intense growth during that spring and first part of the summer, resulting in more fuel. [5] The winter storms also blew down branches, limbs and trees, so California experienced elevated fuel, which remains a concern in areas near brush.

Fuel load: total amount of combustible material. [6]

Snag: A tree stump. Snags are an important fuel for wildfires because they are drier than living trees and therefore more easily ignited. [7]

Backdraft: an explosion that occurs when oxygen is rapidly introduced into a superheated, but oxygen-poor, confined space. For example, if a fire occurs in a well-sealed room, it will burn until it uses up the oxygen in the room. This burning can intensely heat the atmosphere in the room, and its contents. As the fire starves for oxygen, it leaves fuels incompletely burned and superheated. If oxygen is rapidly introduced into this environment, such as by opening the door, the superheated pyrolysis products can explode in rapid combustion. [8]

Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains

The interior Northwest and the northern Rockies face risk of wildfires, especially following dry winters. [9] Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Northern California and northern Nevada confront exposure, seasonally, starting in June or the first half of July, while the region’s “peak of wildfire activity is late July into early September.” [10] Property stakeholders in these areas need to consider potential wildfire conditions like percentage deductibles in their insurance purchasing strategy.

Florida

Drier than average conditions can lead to brush fires in the spring.

Alaska

Alaska led the country in wildfire activity, with nearly twice the amount of land in Delaware burned in 2022 — 3 million acres. [11]

Predicting vs. modeling

Example: March 1993

Weather models could not accurately identify how deeply 1993’s storm system would intensify. Predicting allows an analyst to change their mind while modeling “freezes the opinion to an inextricable apparatus of estimators.” [12] NWS models nor personnel recognized the risk. However, NWS personnel did have enough confidence enough to allow States of Emergency in the Northeast before snow impacted the region. Most of the deaths were due to heart attacks from shoveling snow. Snow can impact the Midwest Great Lakes, interior Northeast too, which may arise from colder air downstream (brings snow and ice events).

Risks:

  • Weight of snow can collapse factory roofs
  • Snowdrifts on the windward side of buildings caused a few decks with substandard anchors to fall from homes.
  • 1993: Power outages, on the average, lasted for one to two weeks all over the east.

References

Backdraft. interfire.org. (n.d.).

Fuel load. interfire.org. (n.d.).

Lada, B. (2023, April 12). AccuWeather’s 2023 US wildfire forecast. Retrieved from https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-forecasts/accuweathers-2023-us-wildfire-forecast/1510132

Snag. interfire.org. (n.d.).

Taleb, N. N. (1995). Dynamic hedging: Managing vanilla and exotic options. John Wiley & Sons.

US Department of Commerce, N. (2020, October 7). March 12th-15th, 1993: Superstorm. National Weather Service. https://www.weather.gov/jan/superstorm_march_1993#:~:text=The%20storm%20system%20caused%20blizzard,to%20over%2010%20million%20customers.