If Hurricane Dorian remains on its current projected track, the storm is set to hit the state’s eastern coastline early on Monday, with Tropical Storm Risk indicating it will have a Category 3 force. However, the National Hurricane Center stressed that it is too soon to say where the storm will make landfall.
The huge range in historical parallels for Category 3 total damages – from $78.8bn to under $2bn adjusted for inflation – highlights the difficulty in giving projections for Dorian at this stage.
However, any storm damage will be reinsured from a low level of industry losses, potentially causing further disruption in the Florida market even at the smaller end of the scale following Hurricane Irma’s $25bn-plus insured loss in 2017 and last year’s $10bn-$12bn hit from Hurricane Michael.
At the moment the cone of probability for the hurricane’s track extends from below Florida to just north of the border with Georgia.
The central track has the hurricane hitting the state between Palm Bay, Brevard County and Port St Lucie further south. The projection has dropped a little further south from earlier this week, when it was closer to Orlando, and remains well north of Miami, the worst-case reinsurance scenario.
Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach pointed out that the most recent Category 3 storm to make landfall along the east coast of Florida was Hurricane Jeanne in September 2004.
That storm caused $16.8bn of damage in 2019 dollars, making it the third most damaging Category 3 hurricane landing in Florida.
Jeanne followed upon the heels of Category 2 Hurricane Frances, which was one of 17 Category 2 storms to land in Florida since 1910. The median damage caused by the lower-strength storms was $1.2bn in today’s prices, according to Icat, with Frances near the most costly with economic losses of $20bn.
The two most expensive historical Category 3 storms to hit Florida both landed on the western side of the peninsula, namely 2005 storm Wilma at $33.4bn of economic losses, with a 1944 event more damaging still.
Klotzbach noted in a tweet that no major hurricane has made landfall on Florida’s eastern coast north of Stuart, near Port St Lucie, since records began. However, 2016 storm Matthew made a close pass along the coastline.
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