April 2014

Wish you had significantly more compute resources during your busiest modeling periods? Want to leverage the resources and flexibility of the cloud without storing your data there? We are seeing growing interest from companies that want greater on-demand elasticity—that is, the ability to expand their compute resources as needed without purchasing additional hardware. 

You can prevent flood damage to vulnerable property by raising it above expected inundation levels or by building defenses to prevent water from reaching it in the first place. But what if you could simply make the problem go away by helping homeowners relocate and then removing the exposure?

Earlier this month at the American Meteorological Society’s Conference on Hurricane and Tropical Meteorology, there was discussion of three storms in particular that will probably have some impact on the perception of hurricane risk in both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean Basins.

What a winter! While we were suffering through a prolonged deep freeze here in the northeastern U.S., one powerful storm after another pounded northern Europe. In total, 43 storms with hurricane force winds formed in the North Atlantic between October 2013 and March 8, 2014, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A little over a year ago, an influenza virus called H7N9 began to sicken and kill humans. Along with many others around the world, I watched and waited to see if a new pandemic was in the making. There have now been more than 400 confirmed human cases, at least 20% of which resulted in death. Fortunately, a second wave of cases in China now appears to be on the downswing, most likely because of the closing of live poultry markets and the arrival of spring.

Wealthy developed nations have a much easier time rebounding from major natural disasters than developing ones. A mature insurance market and high insurance penetration rates are among the mechanisms that add considerably to their resilience by making available financial resources from a source other than the government to help homeowners and businesses rebuild.

With the costly 2011 tornado season now three years behind us, and only a few major severe thunderstorm events since then (the 2013 Moore tornado comes to mind), what is going on? The average number of tornado reports from the beginning of the year through March 17 over the past 9 seasons has been 187. In 2014 so far, we are only at 49, lower than any of the past 9 seasons.

Team WXY/West8 has been designing a system of constructed offshore islands that could significantly reduce the height of storm surges (Source: Rebuild by Design) As a participant, I have to agree with CNN that the Rebuild by Design contest really was one of the ten best ideas of 2013.

Winter is officially over, but in the northeastern U.S., it seems to be hanging on. In fact, the biggest snowstorm of the season just brushed by Cape Cod last weekend. While many locations in the east have experienced one of their coldest winters in decades, many places out west have actually experienced their warmest winter...ever. It's been quite a season.