Technical and site-related inquiries: Kevin Sharp, Modeling Analyst for ICAT 303-327-1909 ksharp@icat.com
More about ICAT: Tom Mercer, Regional Executive Officer for ICAT 303-327-1875 tmercer@icat.com
I am having trouble viewing the website and some searches load very slowly in the map. Is this normal?
Who is ICAT and why did they create this site?
Who should I contact with questions about this site?
What are your guidelines for reproducing information from this site for TV, print, or the web?
How is the damage data calculated?
What do you mean by "Current Damage"?
What do you mean by "Base Damage"?
How is the map created? Where does the storm track information come from?
How is the histogram (graph) created? What does it mean?
How is the National Hurricane Center 5-day forecast cone calculated?
What do the computer model abbreviations mean?
In the data table, why are some "Storm Names" listed as numbers?
In the data table, what do you mean by "Damage Rank"?
In the data table, what does the column "Winds" represent?
In the data table, what does the column "Category" represent?
Why does the same storm appear more than once?
What is meant by "Average", "Median", and "Standard Deviation"?
Where can I find more general information on hurricanes?
The ICAT Damage Estimator website works very quickly in the Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome browsers. Other browsers may take longer to generate the storm tracks in the map, and limiting your search to fewer storms (less than about 25) should speed things up. While the storms are loading in the map, you are still able to scroll through and sort the data table below. We are constantly working to improve the speed and usability of the site. If the site displays oddly in your browser with misaligned or inaccessible menu buttons, please check that your screen resolution and text size are within the ‘medium’ or ‘normal’ range. If you are experiencing problems or would like to comment about your experience on the site, please send us feedback and we will contact you shortly! (back to top)
Please see the About ICAT page for more. (back to top)
General information about damage estimates: Technical Questions: Kevin Sharp, Modeling Analyst for ICAT 303-327-1909 ksharp@icat.com More about ICAT: Tom Mercer, Regional Executive Officer for ICAT 303-327-1875 tmercer@icat.com (back to top)
ICAT Damage Estimator is a protected servicemark. Data from the ICAT Damage Estimator website may be used by third party media, provided the ICAT Damage Estimator servicemark is displayed as part of the data. In addition, we are happy to speak with you about the site and the damage estimates. Please see the contact information above.
When using information from this site, we ask that you: Accompany any material from this website with the ICAT Damage Estimator logo .You can accomplish this by showing the full site, showing the full map window, which includes the ICAT Damage Estimator logo as a top layer, or by using the ICAT Damage Estimator logo in a prominent position surrounding other data taken from the site. www.ICATDamageEstimator.com. (back to top)
Most storms that made landfall in the United States since 1900 have some damages associated with them (a few made landfall in unpopulated areas, though). A detailed record of these damages is contained in Monthly Weather Review articles . The damages are generally recorded as total economic damages, meaning that they represent the total damage from the storm. Since about 1987, the National Hurricane Center has calculated the total economic damages as about twice the insured damages from the storm. Once the total economic damages for each storm are known, we use changes in inflation, wealth, and population to normalize these damages. This normalization method helps to compare all storms equally as if they all struck land in the current year. For example, the Galveston storm of 1900 caused $30 million in damages. However, if that exact same storm were to hit in 2009, the damages would be far greater because:
The information on changes to inflation, wealth, and population is all publically available using the links above. For more information on this accepted methodology, please see the following published paper here: Pielke, Jr., R. A., Gratz, J., Landsea, C. W., Collins, D., Saunders, M., and Musulin, R., 2008. Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1900-2005. Natural Hazards Review, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp. 29-42. (back to top)
This is the total economic damage caused by the storm if it were to make landfall this year. (back to top)
This is the total economic damage caused by the storm in the year that it made landfall. (back to top)
The map is created using the Google Maps API as well as the hurricane Best Track data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration here. ICAT extends a special thank you to NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NHC (the National Hurricane Center) for collecting and maintaining the public data that contributed to this website. ICAT also wishes to thank the programmers at the NHC and Jeff Masters from The Weather Underground for providing quick and detailed advice about pulling real-time storm information. (back to top)
The histogram shows the count of storms with various damages that are contained in your search. The numbers on the vertical axis (left side) show the number of storms in each ‘bin’. The bins are listed along the horizontal axis (bottom). For example, if your search resulted in three storms, one causing $10 million in current damage, one causing $1 billion in current damage, and one causing $25 billion in current damage, then you would see three vertical bars on the graph. Each bar would have a height of one (1) representing a single storm, and the bars would be over the bins “<25M”, “1B-5B”, and “20B-50B”. While this is a simple example, the histogram is most useful when your search contains many, many storms.The histogram, in combination with the statistics below the graph, provide a clearer overview when looking at tens or even hundreds of storms. (back to top)
Please see the definition of the NHC Track Forecast Cone from the National Hurricane Center. (back to top)
For much more about all of the computer models, please see this excellent document from the National Hurricane Center.
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Prior to 1950, storms were not named and were known only by the order in which they formed during the years. The 6th storm that formed in 1926 was known as storm number 6 in 1926. If a storm made a strong landfall prior to 1950, it might get an unofficial name which will be listed in the "Storm Names" section of the data table. (back to top)
The storm with the highest "Current Damage" is ranked "1", and the rankings descend from there. For example, a storm that is ranked 21st has the 21st highest "Current Damage" of all storms in the ICAT Damage Estimator website. (back to top)
The maximum sustained (over one minute) surface wind speed (mph) to occur along the U.S. coast. From 1926 to 1979, no official wind speed estimates are currently available. For these years, we estimate the maximum sustained surface wind speed by using the average windspeed associated with the storm’s Saffir-Simpson category at landfall unless other information is available. For information on the Saffir-Simpson scale, click here . (back to top)
Category is the number on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, and is defined by the maximum sustained surface wind speed:
Often times the same storm name will be used in different years. If the storm appears twice in the same year, this is because some storms make landfall more than once. For instance, in 1992 Hurricane Andrew struck the southeast coast of Florida for its first landfall and about two days later struck Louisiana for its second landfall. These landfalls are split in our data since each landfall has a different damage estimate. (back to top)
The simple explanation is that the average can swing wildly based on extreme (high or low) values, the median is more resistant to swings based on extreme (high or low) values, and the standard deviation shows the variability of the data. When talking about very high or low damage values, the median can often be a better statistic than the average. For a detailed explanation of each statistic, please see Wikipedia: Average, Median, Standard Deviation. (back to top)
This webpage from the Hurricane Research Division provides an excellent resource for many questions related to hurricane basics, forecasting, and storm records and history. (back to top)
