Improvement of typhoon wind hazard model and its sensitivity analysis

Abstract. Typhoons are one of the most serious natural disasters that occur annually on China’s southeast coast. This paper describes a technique for analyzing the typhoon wind hazard based on the empirical track model. Existing simplified and non-simplified typhoon empirical track models are improved, and the improved tracking models are shown to significantly increase the correlation in regression analysis. We also investigate quantitatively the sensitivity of the typhoon wind hazard model. The effects of different typhoon decay models, the simplified and non-simplified typhoon tracking models, different statistical models for the radius to maximum winds (R_max) and Holland pressure profile parameter (B), and different extreme value distributions on the predicted extreme wind speed of different return periods are all investigated. Comparisons of estimated typhoon wind speeds for 50-year and 100-year return periods under the influence of different factors are presented. The different models of R_max and B are found to have greatest impact on the prediction of extreme wind speed, followed by the extreme value distributions, typhoon tracking models, and typhoon decay models. This paper constitutes a useful reference for predicting extreme wind speed using the empirical track model.