Toronto, Ontario -- On May 29, Canadian collision industry professionals gathered online for a webinar covering the hurricane season outlook from IAA, formerly Impact Auto Auctions.
Hosted by Collision Repair’s own Alison Rogers, the webinar feature two presentations. The first was delivered by Blair Earle, managing director of the IAA in Canada, who is also involved in the auto auction giant’s catastrophe preparedness team.
He opened with a discussion on the major climate events that struck Canada last year, including the wildfires and hailstorms in Western Canada as well as the widespread flooding in Ontario and Quebec.
“In 2024, we had the biggest year in terms of catastrophe losses in the history of Canada. One thing you’ll notice is that both the frequency and severity of [extreme weather events] has increased.”
Earle went on to note that these events were estimated to have caused US$9.08 billion in insured damages – more than a third of which occurred in Alberta.
He also discussed how his team had documented vehicle losses in Jasper in the days after the city was devastated by a wildfire.
Due to the damage, which made reading street signs and license plates impossible, his team had to develop innovative methods for documenting vehicle losses. At one point, they team took to spray painting vehicle identification numbers on the burned husks of vehicles.
“It’s important to remember this isn’t just a matter of property damage. It’s about the destruction of communities. It’s heartbreaking to see historic buildings and peoples homes totally destroyed.”
The keynote presentation was delivered by Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. While he specializes tracking hurricanes, Klotzbach did provide a scientific perspective on Canada’s susceptibility to wildfires.
“If you look at this map, which shows you how wet or dry Canada is right now, you’ll see the problem,” he said. “Places like Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are very dry. We tended to have low pressure from the Aleutian Islands off Alaska down Canada’s west coast. As a result those areas have seen higher pressure, which is associated with dry conditions.”
He added that hurricanes had a tendency to worsen fire fires. “What we see is that a bunch of trees get knocked over, then, if there is a drought, that leftover wood dries out and becomes potential fuel.”
Turning to his special subject, tropical storms, Klotzbach then discussed the impact of Hurricaine Debbie, which left Ontario and Quebec facing record floods last year. “Quebec has been tracking these things for a long time. That it broke 300-year-flooding recordings says a lot about the storm.”
Klotzbach, who works at the U.S.-based National Hurricaine Center, went on to discuss the organizations predictions for tropical storms during the upcoming hurricane season. “You can see we’re predicting a total of 17 named storms, nine of them hurricanes and four of which will be major hurricanes… Those have winds of about 111 miles-per-hour [180 km]… and cause about 80 to 85 percent of all the damage.”
While the NHC is forecasting four major hurricanes, it says there could be anywhere between two and six. It also predicts a range of between seven and 12 hurricanes.
Klotzbach went on to discuss how these forecasts can help Canadian collision repair professionals. “In addition to forecasting basin-wide storm activity, we also provide probabilities different regions will be impacted by named storms.”
