NHC discontinued advisories on Tropical Storm Arthur last night, showing the center as dissipating around Galveston. But, as noted yesterday, the center was never really the problem with this elongated and highly sheared system. Here’s the IR view from this morning …
… along with regional radar …
The remnants will continue tracking east-northeast across the southeast, bringing rain and gusty winds. As always with moisture-laden tropical systems (named or not), there is a risk of flash flooding as individual thunderstorm tracks overlap and create areas of higher rain totals, so be alert to flood watches and warnings the next couple of days. Here’s the five day rain total forecasts from GFS and ECM (click to embiggen either map as usual):
To be clear about something, I have tremendous respect for the National Hurricane Center. Ordinarily, I would agree with them following the “forecast of least regret” and leaning towards the side of upgrading storms like Arthur that are marginal. After all, their stated mission is the protection of life and property, so if something might produce tropical storm force winds they should probably start advisories and name it so folks can prepare. However, that’s the problem. The U.S. insurance system is linked to that process, which means that especially for lower level events like Arthur, where damage doesn’t rise to the threshold of triggering re-insurance or other provisions internal to the industry, there is no reason to trigger higher deductibles and screw over consumers.
Added note: This isn’t NWS or NHC’s fault, they have nothing to do with it. This is purely on the state insurance commissioners for letting the companies do it as part of their contracts. And in most states like Georgia, it’s an elected position, so you know what to do …
Furthermore, to be blunt, there is no reason for higher “catastrophe” deductibles anyway. It is purely an artifact of a flawed insurance system, politics, and greed. What gives me the right to make such a bold statement? How about this award winning paper I co-authored which, if you believe Google AI (and you shouldn’t, except in this case 😛 ), is “groundbreaking”…
You are likely referring to the Shin Research Excellence Award (co-presented by the International Insurance Society and The Geneva Association), which researchers Mark E. Johnson, Randy E. Dumm, and Charles C. Watson Jr. won in 2014. [1]
The trio—representing the University of Central Florida, Florida State University, and Enki Holdings, respectively—were honored for their groundbreaking paper, “An Examination of the Geographic Aggregation of Catastrophic Risk,” which was published in The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance. [1, 2]
For some further thoughts on the subject, see this rant (link).
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