Hurricane Isaias continues to move towards the Florida peninsula as a Category 1 hurricane as of Saturday morning, August 1st 08:30 BST, with some slight strengthening seen as of the last update, while the storms forecast path has moved west putting a landfall in Florida or the U.S.east coast firmly in Isaias sights.As we explained last week, .

But there had been significant uncertainty over the storms ability to get past mountainous Hispaniola and through a region experiencing strong wind shear with enough circulation left to still make hurricane strength before heading towards the Bahamas and Florida.Hurricane Isaias is clearly resilient as it managed to achieve this, reaching category 1 hurricane strength and now having strengthened slightly again to reach sustained winds of 85 mph with higher gusts as it heads through the Bahamas on a path now projected to impact the Florida coastline, potentially near to the Miami region.Hurricane Isaias now has a day or so left to travel over increasingly warm waters near the Bahamas on its way towards Florida and the U.S.

east coast, with little in the way to halt its travel.Still, hurricane Isaias is not experiencing the environmental conditions most conducive to intensification, as wind shear remains relatively high and the storm could find itself remaining lop-sided as a result.Importantly, the coming hours and how well hurricane Isaias can organise and form circulation is all going to be crucial to its ability to intensify further as it heads towards Florida.

The storm has been fed drier air from high pressure to its east, which affected its ability to intensify over the last day or so and actually resulted in a little weakening.But hurricane Isaias proved resilient and now looks like it could strengthen a little more as it nears Florida.But once alongside Florida and as it moves further north hurricane Isaias is forecast to emerge back over the warm Gulf Stream, with wind shear interaction lessened and there is a greater chance of hurricane Isaias increasing in strength and perhaps making a second landfall further north on the U.S.

eastern seaboard.The latest forecast shows hurricane Isaias making landfall (or getting incredibly close to it) in Florida and heading north to make a second landfall in the Carolinas.Some forecast models do show hurricane Isaias coming fully ashore in Florida as a strong category 1 storm.

Right now, there remains a lot of uncertainty in the exact track hurricane Isaias will take as it moves north and nears the Florida coast and then beyond that as it moves along the eastern seaboard.A GFS ensemble model run from TropicalTidbits.com shows hurricane Isaias making landfall somewhere north of Miami at the moment: A similar run from a CMC ensemble model via TropicalTidbits.com now also shows hurricane Isaias making landfall on the Florida east coast: Hurricane Isaias still looks set to be a challenging storm to forecast over the next few days, with how meaningful a landfall it makes in Florida having a significant bearing on the eventual chances of an insurance and reinsurance market loss being at all significant.North of Florida though, with a greater chance of some intensification as it emerges back over the Gulf stream, the insurance and reinsurance market will also need to be on watch for losses in states along the eastern seaboard.

But how long hurricane Isaias interacts with Florida could also affect its ability to intensify further as well.A worst case would likely be a strong category 1 landfall in Florida, that then saw Isaias spinning back out to see to regain strength and intensify further as it headed towards a second landfall further up the east coast.Whenever a hurricane comes close to Florida it puts the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond market on watch, given the significant concentration of reinsurance exposure in the state.

Coming soon after a mid-year renewal season when rates were very attractive to underwrite Florida reinsurance business, but hedging capacity wasn’t always readily available, it will be interesting to see whether some quoting activity breaks out for instruments such as industry loss warranties (ILW’s) or last minute parametric reinsurance and retro coverage.So far we’re told live cat activity is incredibly quiet, as the forecast doesn’t suggest significant intensification and the market appears to be focusing on the potential for a relatively low, perhaps in the low single digit billions of dollars, industry loss, our sources said.But, there is every chance some players have entered the hurricane season lacking in retro this year, given the contraction in capacity there and the fact rates have been so high.

Sometimes a storm threat in the water can stimulate the desire for greater protection, resulting in some trading of instruments, as well potentially as trading of cat bonds and other ILS assets.The coming hours are key in determining exactly how big a threat hurricane Isaias is to the insurance, reinsurance and ILS market, with any intensification before a landfall in Florida perhaps accelerating the search for last minute hedging capacity and also potentially able to stimulate cat bond sales activity (if the brokers have kept their desks open, which we hope they have.All eyes on the tropics once again for the next day or two.

You can see a forecast intensity model run for hurricane Isaias from TropicalTidbits.com below: Track the on our dedicated page and we’ll update you as new information emerges and any meaningful storms form.———————————————————————.All of our Artemis Live insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bonds and reinsurance can be accessed online.Our can be subscribed to using the typical podcast services providers, including Apple, Google, Spotify and more.