2021 sees 20 billion-dollar weather disasters, fewer than active 2020
However, even though there were fewer billion-dollar weather disasters, about three times more fatalities were blamed on extreme weather last year than in 2020.
By
Zachary Rosenthal, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Jan 10, 2022 4:23 PM EDT
|
Updated Jan 10, 2022 4:23 PM EDT
This past calendar year was the fourth-warmest year on record for the United States, fueling the second-most billion-dollar disasters ever recorded in the U.S., according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Monday.
The number of disasters this year fell short of 2020 when the country experienced a record-high 22 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the U.S., which, when combined, amounted to a cost of just under $100 billion in damages.
Despite the slight decline in disasters that reached the billion-dollar threshold, the disasters that occurred resulted in significantly higher monetary losses, with damages totaling $145 billion, according to NOAA estimates, good for the third-costliest year on record in the U.S. The number of deaths was also markedly higher, with 688 Americans losing their lives in a billion-dollar disaster compared to 262 people in 2020.
The 688 deaths reported were the most in a single year since 2011 and ranks as the sixth-deadliest year on record.
The damaging year kicked off with a historic mid-February winter storm and cold snap that struck Texas and other parts of the central and southern United States. The storm became the costliest winter storm on record, surpassing the Storm of the Century in March 1993. In total, the cold snap cost $24 billion and was blamed for well over 200 fatalities.
People wait in line to fill propane tanks Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Houston. Customers waited over an hour in the freezing rain to fill their tanks. Millions in Texas lost power after historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures created a surge of demand for electricity to warm up homes unaccustomed to such extreme lows, buckling the state's power grid and causing widespread blackouts. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
It was another destructive year for wildfires as well, with blazes scorching millions of acres across the western U.S. More than 7.1 million acres burned in the West, resulting in $17.6 billion in damage. At least 46 deaths were also reported. One of the most significant was the Dixie Fire, California's second-largest blaze of all time. The blaze, which grew to more than 960,000 acres, burned down most of the town of Greenville, California,
The southern United States was a hotspot for damaging disasters this year, with Hurricane Ida, becoming the year's most damaging disaster, costing at least $75 billion in damages and leaving at least 96 dead. Ida caused near-total destruction in coastal Louisiana, where it made landfall, before knocking out power to a significant part of the New Orleans area. Ida then tracked through the Northeast as a tropical rainstorm, spawning an EF3 tornado and record flash flooding in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey and was blamed for the deaths of dozens in the Northeast.
Workers pump water from a flooded section of Interstate 676 in Philadelphia Friday, Sept. 3, 2021 in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from Tropical Storm Ida that hit the area. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Other tropical systems made the list too, with Hurricane Nicholas as well as tropical storms Elsa and Fred all causing more than $1 billion in damages after striking the Gulf Coast.
Ida was not the deadliest disaster of the year, though. That unwanted distinction goes to the drought and unprecedented June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, which shattered high-temperature records in the U.S. and Canada, killing 229 people and costing the country $8.9 billion. In Portland, Oregon, the temperature rose to 116 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperatures in Seattle shot up to 108 degrees, each an all-time record high.
The Southeast also faced extreme severe weather, including two separate billion-dollar disasters in late March that together spawned at least 65 tornadoes and caused horrific flooding in Nashville and surrounding areas, killing 14 and leaving damage behind that totaled $1.8 billion.
Cars stranded in a Walmart parking lot on Nolensville Pike in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, March 28, 2021. The Nashville area faced flash flood conditions after rainfall in the last 24 hours reached 5 to 8 inches in places, according to the National Weather Service.
Another outbreak occurred in early May, with more than 111 confirmed tornadoes striking the Southeast, killing four and causing $1.3 billion in damage.
The region was also struck by a late-season December tornado outbreak which spawned two extremely long-tracked EF4 tornadoes across Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky. The deadliest tornado devastated Mayfield, Kentucky, and more than 70 people died in Kentucky during the outbreak. In total, 69 tornadoes were reported, causing $3.9 billion in damages and killing 93 people.
Remarkably, just four days later, a separate derecho and tornado outbreak struck the Midwest. The event produced the first December derecho ever recorded in the U.S., as well as the first December tornado recorded in Minnesota since 1950. The event became the largest tornado outbreak in the history of December, with 117 tornadoes reported in a single day, making it also one of the largest single-day outbreaks in U.S. history. Only one person died in the outbreak, which resulted in an estimated $1.9 billion in damages.
A man looks at his damaged home after a strong thunderstorm swept through the town on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, in Hartland, Minn. A powerful storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest amid unseasonably warm temperatures, bringing hurricane-force wind gusts and spawning reported tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. (AP Photo/Christian Monterrosa)
All told, the two disasters smashed the record for tornadoes during the month of December with 193 tornadoes reported, nearly doubling the previous record of 97 in 2002.
Since 1980, billion-dollar disasters have occurred in every U.S. state as well as the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, meaning that anyone could be affected by extreme weather events.
In fact, the number of billion-dollar disasters each year appears to be increasing.
Data from Climate Central shows that the number of billion-dollar disasters every year is increasing, with the time between these disasters shrinking. (Climate Central)
In the 1980s, an average of 2.9 billion-dollar disasters were reported each year. By the 2000s, the average went up to 6.3 billion-dollar disasters each year. In the last five years, an average 17.2 billion-dollar disasters have been recorded each year.
According to a 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is an “established fact” that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have “led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial times.”
The number of disasters in recent years is far above the average, making it hard for the government to respond adequately to each disaster. (Climate Central)
The same report states that, in a warming world, the intensity and frequency of heavy rains, major tropical cyclones and heat waves will continue to increase, inevitably producing more billion-dollar disasters globally and around the United States.
Since 1980, the toll of disasters in the United States has been steep. With 310 billion-dollar disasters, the total economic cost of these events has exceeded $2.1 trillion.
For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, DIRECTVstream, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeatherNOW is streaming on Roku and XUMO.
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News / Climate
2021 sees 20 billion-dollar weather disasters, fewer than active 2020
However, even though there were fewer billion-dollar weather disasters, about three times more fatalities were blamed on extreme weather last year than in 2020.
By Zachary Rosenthal, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Jan 10, 2022 4:23 PM EDT | Updated Jan 10, 2022 4:23 PM EDT
This past calendar year was the fourth-warmest year on record for the United States, fueling the second-most billion-dollar disasters ever recorded in the U.S., according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Monday.
The number of disasters this year fell short of 2020 when the country experienced a record-high 22 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the U.S., which, when combined, amounted to a cost of just under $100 billion in damages.
Despite the slight decline in disasters that reached the billion-dollar threshold, the disasters that occurred resulted in significantly higher monetary losses, with damages totaling $145 billion, according to NOAA estimates, good for the third-costliest year on record in the U.S. The number of deaths was also markedly higher, with 688 Americans losing their lives in a billion-dollar disaster compared to 262 people in 2020.
(NOAA)
The 688 deaths reported were the most in a single year since 2011 and ranks as the sixth-deadliest year on record.
The damaging year kicked off with a historic mid-February winter storm and cold snap that struck Texas and other parts of the central and southern United States. The storm became the costliest winter storm on record, surpassing the Storm of the Century in March 1993. In total, the cold snap cost $24 billion and was blamed for well over 200 fatalities.
People wait in line to fill propane tanks Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Houston. Customers waited over an hour in the freezing rain to fill their tanks. Millions in Texas lost power after historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures created a surge of demand for electricity to warm up homes unaccustomed to such extreme lows, buckling the state's power grid and causing widespread blackouts. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
It was another destructive year for wildfires as well, with blazes scorching millions of acres across the western U.S. More than 7.1 million acres burned in the West, resulting in $17.6 billion in damage. At least 46 deaths were also reported. One of the most significant was the Dixie Fire, California's second-largest blaze of all time. The blaze, which grew to more than 960,000 acres, burned down most of the town of Greenville, California,
The southern United States was a hotspot for damaging disasters this year, with Hurricane Ida, becoming the year's most damaging disaster, costing at least $75 billion in damages and leaving at least 96 dead. Ida caused near-total destruction in coastal Louisiana, where it made landfall, before knocking out power to a significant part of the New Orleans area. Ida then tracked through the Northeast as a tropical rainstorm, spawning an EF3 tornado and record flash flooding in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey and was blamed for the deaths of dozens in the Northeast.
Workers pump water from a flooded section of Interstate 676 in Philadelphia Friday, Sept. 3, 2021 in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from Tropical Storm Ida that hit the area. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Other tropical systems made the list too, with Hurricane Nicholas as well as tropical storms Elsa and Fred all causing more than $1 billion in damages after striking the Gulf Coast.
Ida was not the deadliest disaster of the year, though. That unwanted distinction goes to the drought and unprecedented June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, which shattered high-temperature records in the U.S. and Canada, killing 229 people and costing the country $8.9 billion. In Portland, Oregon, the temperature rose to 116 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperatures in Seattle shot up to 108 degrees, each an all-time record high.
The Southeast also faced extreme severe weather, including two separate billion-dollar disasters in late March that together spawned at least 65 tornadoes and caused horrific flooding in Nashville and surrounding areas, killing 14 and leaving damage behind that totaled $1.8 billion.
Cars stranded in a Walmart parking lot on Nolensville Pike in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, March 28, 2021. The Nashville area faced flash flood conditions after rainfall in the last 24 hours reached 5 to 8 inches in places, according to the National Weather Service.
Another outbreak occurred in early May, with more than 111 confirmed tornadoes striking the Southeast, killing four and causing $1.3 billion in damage.
The region was also struck by a late-season December tornado outbreak which spawned two extremely long-tracked EF4 tornadoes across Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky. The deadliest tornado devastated Mayfield, Kentucky, and more than 70 people died in Kentucky during the outbreak. In total, 69 tornadoes were reported, causing $3.9 billion in damages and killing 93 people.
Remarkably, just four days later, a separate derecho and tornado outbreak struck the Midwest. The event produced the first December derecho ever recorded in the U.S., as well as the first December tornado recorded in Minnesota since 1950. The event became the largest tornado outbreak in the history of December, with 117 tornadoes reported in a single day, making it also one of the largest single-day outbreaks in U.S. history. Only one person died in the outbreak, which resulted in an estimated $1.9 billion in damages.
A man looks at his damaged home after a strong thunderstorm swept through the town on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, in Hartland, Minn. A powerful storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest amid unseasonably warm temperatures, bringing hurricane-force wind gusts and spawning reported tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. (AP Photo/Christian Monterrosa)
All told, the two disasters smashed the record for tornadoes during the month of December with 193 tornadoes reported, nearly doubling the previous record of 97 in 2002.
Since 1980, billion-dollar disasters have occurred in every U.S. state as well as the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, meaning that anyone could be affected by extreme weather events.
In fact, the number of billion-dollar disasters each year appears to be increasing.
Data from Climate Central shows that the number of billion-dollar disasters every year is increasing, with the time between these disasters shrinking. (Climate Central)
In the 1980s, an average of 2.9 billion-dollar disasters were reported each year. By the 2000s, the average went up to 6.3 billion-dollar disasters each year. In the last five years, an average 17.2 billion-dollar disasters have been recorded each year.
According to a 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is an “established fact” that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have “led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial times.”
The number of disasters in recent years is far above the average, making it hard for the government to respond adequately to each disaster. (Climate Central)
The same report states that, in a warming world, the intensity and frequency of heavy rains, major tropical cyclones and heat waves will continue to increase, inevitably producing more billion-dollar disasters globally and around the United States.
Since 1980, the toll of disasters in the United States has been steep. With 310 billion-dollar disasters, the total economic cost of these events has exceeded $2.1 trillion.
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For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, DIRECTVstream, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeatherNOW is streaming on Roku and XUMO.
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