The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Hurricane Index (CMEHI) is an index which describes the potential for damage from an Atlantic hurricane in the United States. The CMEHI is used as the basis for trading hurricane futures and options on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). It is very similar to the Hurricane Severity Index, which also factors both size and intensity of a hurricane.
Index calculation The CMEHI takes as input two variables: the maximum sustained wind speed of a hurricane in miles per hour and the radius to hurricane-force winds of a hurricane in miles (i.e. how far from the center of the hurricane winds of 74 mph or greater are experienced). If the maximum sustained wind speed is denoted by V and the radius to hurricane-force winds is denoted by R then the CMEHI is calculated as follows:
where the subscript 0 denotes reference values. For use on the CME, the reference values of 74 mph and 60 miles are used for the maximum sustained wind speed and radius of hurricane-force winds respectively.
Index history and data The development of the CMEHI was based on work published by Lakshmi Kantha at the Department of Aerospace Studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. Kantha's paperL. Kantha, "Time to Replace the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale?", Eos, Vol. 87, No. 1, 3 January 2006 in Eos developed a number of indices based on various characteristics of hurricanes. The ReAdvisory team at the reinsurance broker RK CarvillRK Carvill website used the basics of the Kantha paper to develop an index which became the Carvill Hurricane Index (CHI). In 2009, the scale was renamed the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Hurricane Index (CMEHI).
The data for the CMEHI comes from the public advisories issued for named storms by the National Hurricane Center. Specifically, to determine the maximum sustained wind speed, the following verbiage is looked for:
To determine the radius to hurricane-force winds, the following phrase is looked for:
For example, Advisory 23AKatrina Advisory 23A for Hurricane Katrina at 1p.m. Central daylight time on Sunday, August 28, 2005, gave the maximum sustained wind speed of 175 mph and the radius of hurricane-force winds of 105 miles resulting in a CMEHI value of 27.9.
Data Public advisories from the National Hurricane Center are archived back to 1998. The table below lists the CMEHI values for all the landfalling hurricanes since 1998 based on the NHC Public Advisories, and uses alternate sources for hurricanes between 1989 and 1998.
CMEHI indices of historical storms (1989 – present) Name Year Landfall NHC advisory number Windspeed at/near landfall (operational) Radius of hurricane–force winds at/near landfall CMEHI index Ref(s) Jerry 1989 Texas N/A 2.3 Hugo 1989 U.S. Virgin Islands N/A 14.4 Hugo 1989 Puerto Rico N/A 10.9 Hugo 1989 South Carolina N/A 19.3 Andrew 1992 Florida N/A 9.9 Erin 1995 Florida N/A 2.7 Marilyn 1995 U.S. Virgin Islands N/A 4.9 Opal 1995 Florida N/A 7.4 Bertha 1996 North Carolina N/A 8.6 Fran 1996 North Carolina 44 14.3 Hortense 1996 Puerto Rico N/A 3.0 Danny 1997 Louisiana N/A 1.5 Bonnie 1998 North Carolina 33 7.7 Earl 1998 Florida 11A 4.6 Georges 1998 Puerto Rico 26B 8.9 Georges 1998 Mississippi 52 5.1 Bret 1999 Texas 17A 7.7 Floyd 1999 North Carolina 34A 9.6 Irene 1999 Florida 10 2.1 Lili 2002 Louisiana 49 4.4 Claudette 2003 Texas 28A 2.1 Isabel 2003 North Carolina 49A 7.7 Charley 2004 Florida 18 10.4 Frances 2004 Florida 44A 6.6 Ivan 2004 Alabama 55B 13.5 Jeanne 2004 Florida 49B 8.0 Dennis 2005 Florida 25B 6.9 Katrina 2005 Florida 9 1.4 Katrina 2005 Louisiana 26A 19.0 Rita 2005 Texas 26B 9.9 Wilma 2005 Florida 36 11.2 Humberto 2007 Texas 4 1.7 Dolly 2008 Texas 13A 3.6 Gustav 2008 Louisiana 31B 7.2 Ike 2008 Texas 48B 9.9 Irene 2011 Puerto Rico 7 1.4 Irene 2011 North Carolina 28A 4.5 Isaac 2012 Louisiana 33 3.0 Arthur 2014 North Carolina 13 4.3 Hermine 2016 Florida 19A 2.6 Matthew 2016 South Carolina 42 1.6 Harvey 2017 Texas 23 8.5 Irma 2017 Florida 45A 11.6 Maria 2017 Puerto Rico 17 15.8 Nate 2017 Louisiana 14A 2.8 Florence 2018 North Carolina 61 3.3 Michael 2018 Florida 16A 14.1 Barry 2019 Louisiana 13 2.1 Dorian 2019 North Carolina 52A 3.5 Hanna 2020 Texas 12 2.9 Isaias 2020 North Carolina 28 2.3 Laura 2020 Louisiana 29A 14.5 Sally 2020 Alabama 21 4.9 Delta 2020 Louisiana Update 4.3 Zeta 2020 Louisiana 17 5.2 Ida 2021 Louisiana 14 13.5 Nicholas 2021 Texas 8A 1.6 Fiona 2022 Puerto Rico 17A 2.5 Ian 2022 Florida 24A 14.1 Ian 2022 South Carolina 33 3.8 Idalia 2023 Florida 15 7.4 Beryl 2024 Texas 39 2.6 Debby 2024 Florida 12 2.0 Francine 2024 Louisiana 13 4.3 Helene 2024 Florida 15 12.1
Prior to 1998, the data becomes sparse. However, using data from the HURSATHurricane Satellite database at NOAA it is possible to construct a set of CMEHI values for storms back to 1983.
Modeled data is available from a number of sources: Seasonal data, suitable for use in the insurance and reinsurance community, is provided by AIR Worldwide Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. provide CMEHI values for live storms through their hCast-SR product MDA Federal provide a real-time CMEHI forecasting product
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