- Location: Great Britain
- Institution: University of Reading
- Status: Active
- Type: Research
- Theme: Risk & Opportunity
- Timeframe: 2024 - 2029
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Windstorms are one of the most expensive natural disasters for the UK, Ireland, and Western Europe. Insurance companies currently work out how risky these storms are by studying storms from recent decades, or by using computer models to generate thousands of “what if” storm scenarios.
However, we only have detailed weather records going back so far. So, some of the most extreme storms in history might be missing from these calculations altogether. That means today’s risk estimates could be underestimating just how bad a storm could get, or missing the kinds of paths a storm could take.
This project aims to dig into the past and rebuild a clearer picture of historic storms using old weather data. By doing this, we can improve how the insurance industry understands and prepares for future storm risks. Insurance partners will work closely with the research team throughout, helping choose which storms to study and how to translate the evidence into real-world risk estimates.
This project is co-funded by Climate + and insurance companies Aon and QBE.
Project Goals
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Get a specialist weather-reconstruction tool (called 20CRv3) running on UK high-performance computers
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Use it to recreate detailed, accurate pictures of major historical storms, using newly digitised pressure readings that were previously kept as archival paper records
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Check our reconstructions against other evidence, like historical damage reports, to make sure they’re realistic
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Work with insurers to estimate what these historic storms would cost if they happened today, and compare that to the storms we already know about
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