How we model hurricane winds
For each storm we estimate the strongest 1-minute sustained wind and 3-second gust at a place, for open, flat ground like an airport. They are estimates from NOAA’s storm track, not measurements. The wind at a particular building also depends on the buildings, trees and hills around it and on its height.
The data
NOAA’s National Hurricane Center publishes a best track for every storm after each season: its position every 6 hours and at landfall, its maximum sustained wind and central pressure. Since 2004 it also gives how far 39, 58 and 74 mph winds reached in each direction, and since 2021 the radius of maximum wind. We load the Atlantic since 1851 and the eastern and central Pacific since 1949, and reload a basin when NOAA posts a new file. Until a season’s best track is out, we use the center’s working best track for that season, updated hourly, and mark those storms preliminary.
The model
- We follow the track every 15 minutes, between the best track’s times.
- The strongest wind is NOAA’s maximum sustained wind. Half the storm’s forward speed is added on the right side of its path and taken away on the left.
- Away from the center, the wind passes through NOAA’s 74, 58 and 39 mph distances in each direction when NOAA gives them (2004 on). Before 2004 it follows a Holland (1980) wind profile, sized with Vickery and Wadhera’s (2008) formulas from the central pressure and latitude. When the pressure is missing, as it is for most storms before 1979, it comes from the wind (Atkinson and Holliday, 1977).
- NOAA’s maximum wind is over open water. Over open land the wind is lower: we use 80% of the open-water wind for weaker winds, rising to 90% for the strongest, within the 14 to 28% reductions published by Vickery and others (2009).
- The gust is 1.23 times the 1-minute wind, the usual factor for open ground.
- A storm is listed at a city when its modeled sustained wind there reached 39 mph, tropical-storm force.
- Each storm’s wind field on its map uses the same model: every hour along the track, how far sustained winds of 39, 58, 74 and 111 mph reached over open land in 36 directions, joined from hour to hour.
How it compares with measured gusts
Source: Cloudbreak analysis of NOAA HURDAT2 best tracks and Iowa Environmental Mesonet ASOS daily summaries, October 2026.
We compared the modeled peak gust with the highest gust measured at every NWS airport weather station within 100 miles of each storm’s track. A median of 1.02 means the typical station’s modeled gust was 2% above its measured gust.
| Storms | Stations | Median, modeled ÷ measured | Within 20% | Within 30% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 US landfalls, 2005 to 2024 | 3,475 | 1.02 | 53% | 70% |
| 13 US landfalls, 1989 to 2004 | 1,183 | 1.02 | 44% | 60% |
Within 25 miles of the track the model reads about 10% high. Where stations measured gusts above 111 mph it reads low, in part because airport wind sensors often fail in the strongest winds. A station’s peak can also come from a thunderstorm in an outer rain band.
Limits
The model can’t see the coastline, hills, buildings, the eyewall’s smallest gusts or tornadoes in rain bands. It doesn’t cover storm surge or flooding. Storms before the 1940s had fewer observations, so their tracks and strengths are less certain.
Sources
- NOAA National Hurricane Center, best track data (HURDAT2)
- Holland (1980), An analytic model of the wind and pressure profiles in hurricanes, Monthly Weather Review
- Vickery and Wadhera (2008), Statistical models of Holland pressure profile parameter and radius to maximum winds of hurricanes, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology
- Vickery, Masters, Powell and Wadhera (2009), Hurricane hazard modeling: the past, present, and future, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics
- Atkinson and Holliday (1977), Tropical cyclone minimum sea level pressure and maximum sustained wind relationship, Monthly Weather Review
- Iowa State University, Iowa Environmental Mesonet, NWS airport weather station (ASOS) daily summaries