Scott Stransky

Every year we invite you to enter a Hurricane Contest just like the one AIR employees participate in.

With the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season on June 1 just a couple of weeks away it’s time for AIR’s Annual Hurricane Contest!

With the North Atlantic season over we can announce the winner of AIR’s client hurricane contest!

With the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season on June 1 just a couple of weeks away, it's time for AIR’s Annual Hurricane Contest!

With the Atlantic hurricane season behind us, we can announce the winner of AIR’s third client hurricane contest.

We are just a couple of weeks away from the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season on June 1, and it is time for AIR's Annual Hurricane Contest!

Whichever way you look at it, 2017 was a remarkable hurricane season: The U.S. major hurricane drought ended; it was the first year on record in which the U.S. experienced three Category 4 or higher landfalls; and September was the single most active month on record.

Last year we invited InFocus readers to enter the Hurricane Contest that AIR’s employees have enjoyed for the last seven years. Now we are a couple of weeks from the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, and we’re running the contest again!

Well, AIR’s first client hurricane contest has come to a close.

The entry period for participation in AIR's first external U.S. hurricane contest closed on May 31, 2016—just ahead of the official start to the season—and I'm glad to report that there's been a terrific response.

Are you more accurate than a random number generator? Now that it's mid-May and we are just a couple of weeks away from the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, it is time to enter AIR's annual Hurricane Contest.

The strong El Niño of 2015 produced an Atlantic season with the climatological average number of tropical cyclones. However, as expected, it greatly enhanced activity in the Eastern and Central Pacific.

On June 27, 2015, a severe thunderstorm struck the small town of Roseisle, Manitoba, just over an hour’s drive southwest of Winnipeg. Hail was reported to be tennis ball–sized and accompanied by winds of 100 km/h (62 mph).

In late February, I had the chance to present our U.S. severe thunderstorm model at the National Tornado Summit in Oklahoma City, OK. Attendees included representatives from the insurance industry, regulators, emergency managers, disaster recovery companies, and many others.

Bermuda lucked out during Gonzalo. Bermuda was right in the center of Gonzalo’s eye. Those two statements may seem contradictory, but they’re not.

Canada experienced its first F5 tornado back in June of 2007, when a powerful twister touched down in Elie, Manitoba. I can guarantee that Canada will never see another F5 tornado – ever!

Early on the morning of August 8, 2014, Tropical Storm Iselle made landfall on the Big Island of Hawaii, near the small town of Pahala with 60 mph sustained winds. Iselle was the first tropical cyclone landfall on the Big Island since 1958, and just a few hours prior to landfall, it was still a hurricane.

As we all know, a Sharknado can be a powerful and deadly force of nature as the documentary shown last night on SyFy confirmed. From a life insurance and health insurance point of view, this peril is near the top of the list of worst possible scenarios. But what about from the property insurance angle, which many of our clients are concerned with?

A year ago, a powerful and destructive EF-5 tornado hit the town of Moore, Oklahoma. Leading the damage survey team that AIR sent out the following weekend, I gained a new appreciation for the destructive force of tornadoes, and severe thunderstorms in general.

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.