Improved Estimates of the European Winter Windstorm Climate and the Risk of Reinsurance Loss Using Climate Model Data

Abstract Current estimates of the European windstorm climate and their associated losses are often hampered by either relatively short, coarse resolution or inhomogeneous datasets. This study tries to overcome some of these shortcomings by estimating the European windstorm climate using dynamical seasonal-to-decadal (s2d) climate forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The current s2d models have limited predictive skill of European storminess, making the ensemble forecasts ergodic samples on which to build pseudoclimates of 310–396 yr in length. Extended winter (October–April) windstorm climatologies are created using scalar extreme wind indices considering only data above a high threshold. The method identifies up to 2363 windstorms in s2d data and up to 380 windstorms in the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40). Classical extreme value analysis (EVA) techniques are used to determine the windstorm climatologies. Differences between the ERA-40 and s2d windstorm climatol...