Enhanced impacts of compound precipitation and wind extremes on residential buildings

While it is known that severe winter wind storms are related with strong impacts, this study investigates the enhanced impact of compound precipitation and wind extremes. Therefore, we analyse the co-occurrence of extreme wind and precipitation using ERA5 reanalysis data for the European winter season. Co-occurring events are defined by simultaneous threshold exceedance of daily wind speed and precipitation in same or neighbouring areas.

For the quantification of impacts, we are using daily insurance records of damages for residential buildings over Germany provided by the German Insurance Association (GDV). Using the definition of co-occurring extremes, those damage records can be grouped into compound and non-compound events. Analysing insurance loss data between 1997-2016 allows comparisons of the distribution of both groups. There are much more events in the non-compound group. On the other hand, the distribution of the compound group is shifted towards higher damages with an increased median of a factor of ten.