RMS Forecast Factors in El Nino Cycle

Newark, Calif.-based Risk Management Solutions has released its perspective in anticipation of a possible El Niño cycle between 2006 and 2011, and hurricane activity.

On Wednesday, September 13, the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) declared that El Niño conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific Ocean and are likely to continue into early 2007. RMS recognized the possibility of an El Niño cycle occurring between 2006 and 201l timeframe and therefore developed its five-year, forward-looking assessment of hurricane landfall frequency accordingly.

The scientists that gathered for the RMS expert climatology panel in 2005 formed the basis of the medium term view of landfall frequency, incorporating an El Niño cycle with lower hurricane activity into their five-year outlook.

An El Niño cycle traditionally reduces hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean Basin, yet the onset of this cycle does not change the predominant view in the hurricane sciences that the Atlantic Basin will continue to be in a period of higher activity that will likely last for at least the next several decades.

RMS has prepared a set of Frequently Asked Questions regarding El Niño and the RMS medium-term view of hurricane risk at: http://www.rms.com/publications/2006%20el%20nino%20faq.pdf.

Source: RMS