Impact forecasting for meteorological hazards such as wind aims to integrate detailed exposure and vulnerability information into an initial hazard forecast commonly produced by a numerical weather prediction model. Most impact forecasting systems to date leave this integration to the user of the impact guidance by presenting exposure and vulnerability information as spatial layers.

The hazard impact model developed in this study quantitatively integrates wind hazards from the BARRA-SY 1.5 km reanalysis with heuristically derived wind vulnerability functions for residential buildings and exposure information sourced from the National Exposure Information Database (NEXIS). The model produces quantitative building damage, currently in the form of a damage index.

The hazard impact model has been run for the 20-22 April 2015 East Coast Low case that produced strong winds and other hazards in the Hunter district of New South Wales, in particular in the town of Dungog.

We will present how the model-produced damage predictions compare with damage data acquired from NSW State Emergency Services (SES) and the NSW Emergency Information Coordination Unit (EICU). This comparison involves a discussion of the disparity between modelled and surveyed aspects of the natural hazards that impacted on residential buildings during the Dungog event. Of particular relevance is that surveyed damage data tend to be non-specific as to the underlying hazard(s) and asset classes affected by them, or they lack in spatial coverage.