Severe TC Vance was one of the most intense cyclones to impact mainland Australia. The observed damage to buildings could be explained in terms of structural performance of those buildings. Combining the structural vulnerability of housing with an estimate of the maximum wind gusts, we can explore the possible impacts that a repeat of Vance would cause in Exmouth, and compare the outcomes with what occurred in 1999. The analysis of the impacts of TC Vance on present-day Exmouth shows that very few houses would be completely destroyed. Not surprisingly, older houses (pre-1980’s construction era, excluding the US Navy block houses) would dominate those destroyed, and most likely the timber-framed style houses, many of which were substantially damaged in TC Vance. Published in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management July 2019 edition

Severe TC Vance was one of the most intense cyclones to impact mainland Australia. The observed damage to buildings could be explained in terms of structural performance of those buildings. Combining the structural vulnerability of housing with an estimate of the maximum wind gusts, we can explore the possible impacts that a repeat of Vance would cause in Exmouth, and compare the outcomes with what occurred in 1999. The analysis of the impacts of TC Vance on present-day Exmouth shows that very few houses would be completely destroyed. Not surprisingly, older houses (pre-1980’s construction era, excluding the US Navy block houses) would dominate those destroyed, and most likely the timber-framed style houses, many of which were substantially damaged in TC Vance.

Tropical Cyclone (TC) Tracy impacted Darwin early on Christmas Day, 1974. The magnitude of damage was such that Tracy remains deeply ingrained in the Australian psyche. Several factors contributed to the widespread damage, including the intensity of the cyclone and construction materials employed in Darwin at the time. Since 1974, the population of Darwin has grown rapidly, from 46,000 in 1974 to nearly 115,000 in 2006. If TC Tracy were to strike Darwin in 2008, the impacts could be catastrophic. We perform a validation of Geoscience Australia's Tropical Cyclone Risk Model (TCRM) to assess the impacts TC Tracy would have on the 1974 landscape of Darwin, and compare the impacts to those determined from a post-impact survey. We then apply TCRM to the present-day landscape of Darwin to determine the damage incurred if a cyclone identical to TC Tracy impacted the city in 2008. In validating TCRM against the 1974 impact, we find an underestimate of the damage at 36% of replacement cost (RC), compared the survey estimate of 50-60% RC. Some of this deficit can be accounted for through the effects of large debris. Qualitatively, TCRM can spatially replicate the damage inflicted on Darwin by the small cyclone. The northern suburbs suffer the greatest damage, in line with the historical observations. For the 2008 scenario, TCRM indicates a nearly 90% reduction in the overall loss (% RC) over the Darwin region. Once again, the spatial nature of the damage is captured well, with the greatest damage incurred close to the eye of the cyclone. Areas that have been developed since 1974 such as Palmerston suffer very little damage due to the small extent of the severe winds. The northern suburbs, rebuilt in the years following TC Tracy, are much more resilient, largely due to the influence of very high building standards put in place between 1975 and 1980. Article published in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management

We present the formulation of an open-source, statistical–parametric model of tropical cyclones (TCs) for use in hazard and risk assessment applications. The model derives statistical relations for TC behaviour (genesis rate and location, intensity, speed and direction of translation) from best-track datasets, then uses these relations to create a synthetic catalogue based on stochastic sampling, representing many thousands of years of activity. A parametric wind field, based on radial profiles and boundary layer models, is applied to each event in the catalogue that is then used to fit extreme-value distributions for evaluation of return period wind speeds. We demonstrate the capability of the model to replicate observed behaviour of TCs, including coastal landfall rates which are of significant importance for risk assessments. <b>Citation: </b>Arthur, W. C.: A statistical–parametric model of tropical cyclones for hazard assessment, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 893–916, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-893-2021, 2021.