Delegates at the World Insurance Forum in Dubai were told that New York City and its surrounding area are highly vulnerable to a rare form of hurricane known as a “northern hurricane.” In a presentation on mega-risks, Nicholas Coch of Queens College, University of New York, said northern hurricanes are rare but powerful phenomena that occur when a hurricane shoots up the east coast of the United States and is not deflected by winds, but instead runs north into the New York/New Jersey area.

Coch said these storms tend to be two to three times faster than the hurricanes that hit the Gulf of Mexico or Florida virtually every year, leading to less evacuation time. Northern hurricanes also occur later in the season than others, tending to happen between August and October, and can impact a wide area as they cause a storm surge in the angle of the coastline delineated by New Jersey and Connecticut. The last time that a northern hurricane occurred was the Long Island hurricane of 1938. Coch said they tend to occur about once every 90 years, making one statistically likely by the 2020s.

New York Vulnerable to Rare Hurricanes (BestWire 3/18/08)

March 27, 2008