Strong surface wind gusts and heavy rain are meteorological hazards that are predominantly produced by storms such as east coast lows, tropical cyclones or thunderstorms. Interest in these hazards from a response agency point of view lies in their impact on the natural and built environment. At present, weather forecast models still predict mostly 'raw' meteorological output such as surface wind speeds at certain times, or rain accumulations over a specified period. This model output needs to be combined with exposure and vulnerability information to translate the forecast hazard into predicted impact. The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project Impact-based forecasting for the coastal zone: East-Coast Lows attempts to demonstrate a pilot capability to deliver impact forecasts for residential housing from an ensemble of weather prediction models runs. The project is a collaborative effort between the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia. The project is initially focusing on the wind and rainfall impact from the 20-22 April 2015 east coast low event in NSW. The wind and rainfall hazard data are provided by a 24-member ensemble of the ACCESS model on a 1.3 km grid, with damage data acquired from NSW State Emergency Services (SES) and the Emergency Information Coordination Unit (EICU) for the 2015 event. We will show that the multi-hazard nature of an east coast low event makes attributing the observed building damage to a single hazard difficult. Wind damage to residential housing in this case is largely due to tree fall. This 'damage-by-intermediary' mechanism requires not just the knowledge of building properties in an exposed area, but also additional knowledge of the surrounding vegetation and its response to strong winds. We will discuss enhancements to the SES/EICU damage survey templates that would lead to improvements in the development of the hazard-damage relationships. Abstract presented at the 2018 Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC (bnhcrc) and Australasian Fire And Emergency Services Authorities Council (AFAC) Conference

This dynamic dataset is composed of data layers representing the potential damage arising from the impacts of Tropical Cyclone (TC) related winds on residential houses. The impacts are determined using information on the forecast track of the TC issued by the Bureau of Meteorology, nationally consistent exposure (residential building) and vulnerability (likely level of damage) information maintained by Geoscience Australia. The tracks are based on the content of Technical Bulletins issued by the Bureau of Meteorology’s Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres every 6 hours for active TCs in the Australian region. As such, information is generated intermittently, depending on the occurrence of TCs. The tracks are a forecast only, so do not include past position information of the TC. Forecasts may extend up to 120 hours (5 days) ahead of the forecast time. A wind field around each track is simulated using Geoscience Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Risk Model (TCRM, https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/77484). This provides an estimate of the maximum gust wind speed over open, flat terrain (e.g. airports). Local effects such as topography and land cover changes are incorporated via site wind multipliers (https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/75299), resulting in a 0.2-second, 10-m above ground level wind speed, with a spatial resolution of approximately 30 metres. The impacts are calculated using Geoscience Australia’s HazImp code (https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/110501), which utilises the National Exposure Information System building data and a suite of wind vulnerability curves to determine the level of damage sustained by individual buildings (a damage index). The damage index values are aggregated to Australian Bureau of Statistics Statistical Area Level 1 regions, and can be assigned a qualitative damage description based on the mean damage index.