Hurricane Helene forecast to be a very large storm ahead of Cat 3 Florida landfall

Hurricane Helene is in the Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph with higher gusts, and strengthening is expected as it heads towards Florida, currently forecast to make landfall on the Big Bend coast as a major Category 3 storm later this evening or early Friday morning local time.

The forecasts suggest that Helene will become a particularly large storm as it intensifies towards a major hurricane, although there remains uncertainty as to the overall size of the wind swath and how Helene might impact the Florida coast.

Given its large size, storm surge, wind, and rainfall impacts are expected to extend far beyond the centre and outside the forecast cone. Forecasts also suggest that Helene will have a very fast forward speed at landfall, which will bring strong winds further inland, with some models suggesting hurricane speed winds into Georgia and potentially beyond.

The latest update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) at 4:00am CDT forecasts maximum wind speeds of 115 mph, with gusts of up to 138 mph at landfall, so a major Cat 3 hurricane. This is different from the earlier update from the NHC, which pointed to maximum wind speeds of 132 mph with gusts of 161 mph, so a major Cat 4 storm. But while the forecast has changed, there’s still a chance Helene intensifies to a Cat 4 ahead of landfall, although currently this isn’t expected.

In its most recent update, the NHC said: “Helene is sending some mixed structural signals this morning. On one side, an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft reports that the central pressure has fallen to near 966 mb, and satellite imagery shows the eye is trying to clear out. On another side, the aircraft reported concentric eyewalls of 16 and 32 n mi diameter, with the maximum flight-level winds, 80 kt at 700 mb, occurring about 50 n mi southeast of the center likely in relation to the outer eyewall. Based on the central pressure fall and the available data, the initial intensity is increased to 80 kt.”

The storm is also likely to bring catastrophic and deadly storm surge to parts of the Florida Big Bend coast, with the NHC warning that inundation could reach as high as 20 feet above ground level, along with destructive waves.

“There is also a danger of life-threatening storm surge along the remainder of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula. Residents in those areas should follow advice given by local officials and evacuate if told to do so,” warns the NHC.

While it’s too early for accurate insurance and reinsurance industry loss estimates, reinsurance broker Gallagher Re has provided a preliminary loss review for Helene, noting that historically, a major hurricane landfall in the Big Bend or Panhandle region of Florida has led to insured losses in the low single-digit billions of USD.

“But Helene is not a typical storm. Given Helene’s very large wind radius, this would still bring hurricane-force wind gusts and high storm surge to coastal areas in the heavily populated Tampa Bay area, tropical storm force winds across most of the Florida peninsula, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and southern Appalachia. This initially suggests that Helene’s private insurance market losses should be expected to land in the range of USD3 billion to USD6 billion. This is subject to change. Additional losses attributed to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the USDA’s crop insurance program may approach USD1 billion,” says the broker.

Although currently not anticipated and viewed as unlikely, there is a chance that hurricane Helene unexpectedly shifts east and arrives closer to Tampa, an area more densely populated and with higher values at risk. In this scenario, according to Gallagher Re, “the cost to the private insurance market and federally run programs would be expected to notably exceed USD10 billion.”

Lastly, BMS Group’s Senior Meteorologist, Andrew Siffert, said the following in his latest update on the storm: “It is still too early to provide loss estimates for the insurance industry, as a shift in the storm’s path closer to Tallahassee could significantly raise the overall losses. There are still questions as to the overall size of the wind swath and how it might impact the west coast of Florida. In general, however, given the rural nature of much of the Florida landfall area and areas into southern Georgia, it should provide a lower loss than what was experienced in Hurricane Michael in 2018 ($16B), which had a track west of Helene as a category five hurricane with strong winds up into southern Georgia.

“We have to remember that Idalia made landfall in the same general area last year as a major hurricane, and according to the catastrophe risk model, this was one of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall to have such a low level of loss and that was partly due to the rural nature of the landfall areas. Helene will likely fall into the same category: powerful hurricane but with reasonably low insurance industry loss.”

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