Understand how to read the interactive heat maps included with Risk Factor.
With Risk Factor, you unlock access to interactive Extreme Heat maps to better understand a property’s risk. This map can be used to visualize how the heat will impact an area and understand the effect of a changing climate on extreme heat risks.
Current & Future Risk
The expected change in average high temperature is influenced by the changing environment. A changing environment means higher average temperatures and increased humidity, which has a compounding effect on heat indexes, or “feels like” temperatures, that make risky health impacts more likely. As the global temperature rises at a faster rate than ever recorded, it's important to understand what factors contribute to heat risk.
Year
Current and future risk is based on the current average daily high temperature and humidity of a property’s specific location during the hottest month of the year and considers how it’s expected to grow over the next 30 years.
Over the last 30 years, the average temperature in the contiguous US has increased by 1.2°F compared to the first half of the twentieth century, which has driven an increase in both the frequency and intensity of hot days. Heat waves and heat advisories are more frequent as a result, and this warming trend is expected to increase over the next 30 years. Explore heat risk by year to understand how environmental changes impact risk.
Days above the local hot temperature
Temperature is usually explained with comparisons to local norms. For this reason, the Extreme Heat Model determines what someone would reasonably consider a “hot day” based on the specific location of a property. A local “hot day” refers to the temperature on the hottest days for 7 days for that specific location. The term “hot day” is used to represent local heat index temperatures or temperatures that would be seen only about 2% of days each year by the heat index. The model calculates the number of days the temperature was above this local hot day threshold this year and estimates the number of days above this temperature in the future
Maximum monthly temperature
The maximum monthly temperature reflects the 30-day average of the daily high temperatures for the hottest month of the year.
Temperatures during the hottest month of the year are reviewed for each property’s specific location. For the majority of areas, the hottest month of the year is July, and in some areas is August. The daily high “feels like” temperatures during this month are then averaged to determine the average high daily temperature for a property’s specific location this year, and 30 years into the future. “Feels like” temperature, also known as Heat index, is a measure used to indicate the level of discomfort the average person is thought to experience as a result of the combined effects of the temperature and humidity in the air.
Once the average daily high “feels like” temperature has been calculated at a property level for both this year and 30 years, the average of that 30-year time period is taken in order to arrive at a single temperature value that represents both how hot a specific location is and how much the temperature is expected to grow at that property.