A simplified statistical model for regional offshore typhoon wind risk assessment

The accuracy of typhoon wind risk assessment methods is of great significance for offshore or coastline areas. Due to the practical limitations of typhoon measurement, it is common to perform Monte-Carlo simulation (MCS) to extrapolate such data to thousands of years to estimate the extreme wind speed. However, there are technical limitations for engineering applications of this technique, and the computational costs are significant for assessment on a regional level. For the preliminary typhoon risk assessment for a region, a simplified statistical method (SSM) is proposed in this paper. In the proposed method, the extreme wind speed is estimated with the extended “Improved Method of Independent Storms” (XIMIS) method, based on simulated wind field results using the best track typhoon data, i.e., the historical typhoon record information. The results of the simplified statistical method are validated by comparison with local code wind speeds and with full track MCS results in the Northwest Pacific basin using the best track database of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). Finally, the proposed SSM method is used to produce a wind map for typhoon risk assessment in offshore and coastal regions of southeast China, with high efficiency and acceptable accuracy.