You might be surprised to discover that hurricane season affects most of the United States. The Gulf and Atlantic coasts get the brunt of it. However, the power and size of hurricanes can make their negative impacts reach far beyond the shores where they land.
For your big event or your golf event, you’ll want to consider rain insurance during hurricane season, because the long arm of the “awe” could reach all the way to you.
Find out how Vortex Weather Insurance can help protect your business or event revenue with an easy online quote, and read on to understand how hurricanes can hit the heartland and your bottom line.
What Exactly Is a “Hurricane?”
Sometimes referred to as a tropical cyclone, a hurricane refers to a low-pressure weather system with organized thunderstorm activity, and maximum wind speeds of 74 miles per hour or higher.
Hurricanes usually form over tropical or subtropical waters. Their ferocity comes from gathering energy from warmer ocean waters. The process of gathering this energy starts them turning in the circular direction, creating their characteristic swirled shape and “eye” in the center.
The direction they spin depends on their hemisphere location. Hurricanes in the Northern hemisphere rotate counterclockwise. Hurricanes in the Southern hemisphere rotate clockwise.
Tropical Cyclones vs Hurricanes
The storm’s maximum wind speed determines the classification.
39 MPH or less: it’s a tropical depression.
40 to 73 MPH: call it a tropical storm
74 MPH or higher: welcome to hurricane town, population you.
Hurricanes also have a secondary distinction: major hurricanes. These beasts have maximum wind speeds of at least 111 miles per hour or more. Gusts can reach over 200 miles per hour.
Hurricane Categories
You may have heard of “Cat 1” or “Cat 3” hurricanes on the weather channels. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale defines the categories of hurricanes based on the sustained wind speeds instead of the maximum wind speeds.
- Category 1: 75 to 95 MPH
- Category 2: 96 to 110 MPH
- Category 3: 112 to 129 MPH
- Category 4: 130 to 156 MPH
- Category 5: 157 MPH and greater
Needless to say, even Category 1 hurricanes are truly bad news.
Related: Why you need weather insurance for youth sport events.
How Hurricanes Affect Land
If hurricanes grow over ocean water, why would you need rain insurance during hurricane season if you’re inland?
The answer lies in how powerful the hurricane is when it hits land. Most hurricanes are around 400 miles wide, with a 30-mile wide eye. When one of these monsters reaches shore, the energy dissipates as it swirls over land and leaves the warm waters.
Don’t discount the wind too soon, though, because hurricane force winds can be felt as far inland as 150 miles. Even tropical storm wind speeds can be devastating to buildings not designed for hurricane weather.
Hurricanes Can Cause Tornadoes Too
And just when you thought hurricanes couldn’t get much worse, they can birth tornadoes during landfall. Most of the time those tornadoes spawn in the right front quadrant, away from the eye—though they can occur in the eyewall too.
If there’s any silver lining here, it’s the fact that hurricane-spawned tornadoes are usually less powerful and destructive than tornadoes produced by supercell thunderstorms. So, yay for that.
Non-Stop Rain
Turns out that inland, it’s the rain that gets you. And that rain just keeps coming.
This storm system has been shoving warm air—which is laden with moisture—into the atmosphere in front of the hurricane. Within the main body of the hurricane and the bands that reach out like swirling arms from it, this moisture becomes heavy and profuse rainfall.
The rain continues as the hurricane slides itself over a land mass, even though the winds might become less ferocious because of the loss of thermal energy. Even if devastating flooding is avoided, that rain can negatively affect your event—which makes rain insurance smart insurance!
Think about a 400 mile wide storm front. That storm front could disturb many miles of atmosphere in front of it and behind it as it slowly crawls across state boundaries.
As it moves, the outer bands of a hurricane might finally come to shore 3 days after the hurricane officially reaches landfall. It’s dragging that heavy, moisture-laden warm air with it, making the entire system pour rain for a very long time.
Even though your event location may not be touched by the official “hurricane” and won’t be affected by tidal water storm surge, it could still be deluged by rain.
Rain Insurance During Hurricane Season Can Help You
You may already have cancellation insurance in place, along with all the other insurance policies that go with putting on a successful event. But when hurricanes threaten weather, how does rain insurance from Vortex Weather Insurance help?
If that hurricane shoves bands of rain onto your location, that rain amount could trigger your policy. Should that happen, your policy pays out—whether or not the event itself is canceled.
How Vortex Weather Insurance Works
We help you customize a policy based on your exact event location, and the date and hours you want to insure. You can also add hours before or after the event to cover setup and breakdown. You’ll also choose the amount of insurance you want to have (that is, how much you’ll be paid out if the policy triggers a claim).
Because of our flexibility, you can choose the weather risk level down to 1/10 (.1) inch of rain.
After your event, rainfall amounts are determined by hyper-localized, third-party data. Once we receive the final data from an independent source, if the recorded rainfall meets or exceeds the threshold, your policy triggers and the claim process goes into effect.
That’s it. You don’t have to prove financial loss or hardship, and your event doesn’t have to be canceled. Vortex doesn’t care how or why the rain came. If your threshold is met and triggers the policy, you get compensation.
It’s the rain that can trigger the policy, and help your bottom line.
What Weather Insurance Isn’t
Keep in mind that weather insurance isn’t cancellation insurance, or wind insurance. Different companies handle these possibilities.
But if there’s rain, snow, or adverse temperatures possible in the forecast, let’s talk before your event. And especially when tropical cyclones are brewing, you should consider rain insurance during hurricane season.
Insurance to Weather the Storm
Rain insurance during hurricane season must match your needs, wherever you are. The team of weather nerds at Vortex delivers policies nationwide, helping event organizers and producers narrow down options to achieve the perfect fit
We promise to make the weather insurance process simple and time-effective. We can also work with your current insurance agent or broker, making sure their protection helps to protect your revenue from adverse weather! Anytime you’re ready, check out our free online cost calculator, or call us at 203-550-6150.
Don’t worry about the weather. That’s our job, at Vortex Weather Insurance.
