Towards hurricane impact forecasting for the Caribbean Netherlands

The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) has been responsible for weather forecasting in the Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba – the BES islands) since 2016. And while weather patterns in the Caribbean often exhibit homogeneous characteristics, this region is also prone to some of the most violent storms on earth in the form of hurricanes. Infamous examples of this are Hurricanes Irma and Maria (2017), which both passed close to Saba and St. Eustatius.

With its extensive weather forecasting expertise as a solid foundation, KNMI is now moving towards impact-based forecasting through the development of the Early Warning Centre. For the BES islands, this means that we will design a hurricane impact model, combining KNMI's forecasting experience with impact modeling expertise nested within academia. This impact model will operate on two spatial levels: as a network model to analyze disruptions in transportation networks between Caribbean islands, and an impact model to study impacts on the islands themselves. For the latter, we follow the traditional risk modeling approach and set up a hazard – exposure – vulnerability type of model chain. However, one of the major challenges we’ll be facing is the spatial scale of particularly the islands of Saba and St. Eustatius: the islands have a surface areas of respectively 13 km2 (5 sq mi) and 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi), meaning they can easily vanish in a catastrophe model.  We will therefore rely on local stakeholders, who will help develop and improve exposure and vulnerability input data.