$15 Billion Disasters

From Weather.com:

“15 Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Hit The US This Year, A Record Pace, NOAA Says”

The count of billion-dollar weather disasters in the United States so far in 2023 has already reached 15, according to a new government report, and that's a record pace through July before hurricane season shifts into higher gear. A​mong these 15 costly events were 13 separate rounds of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes from March through late June primarily in the southern and central U.S., NOAA detailed in their monthly national climate report released Tuesday. The tally of such disasters through July was more than any previous year to-date, one more than January-July 2017, NOAA said. Record-keeping for billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. dates back to 1980. The combined total of these 2023 disasters is $39.7 billion. That's second only to 2021 for the total damage toll through the first seven months of any year since 1980, according to NOAA.

H​ere is NOAA's list of these 15 disasters, in chronological order, along with their latest damage estimates.

1. California Flooding ($4.6 billion): A parade of Pacific storms began just after Christmas 2022 and lasted into March, dumping flooding rain in parts of Northern California and the Central Valley, as well as feet of record snowfall in parts of the Sierra and Southern California high country.

2. Northeast Cold Wave ($1.8 billion): A blast of bitterly cold air swept through the Northeast in early February. High winds downed trees and power lines, particularly in New England. In parts of northern Maine, water in trees froze and expanded, causing them to split. This cold outbreak also set a wind chill record of minus 108 degrees at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire.

3. South, East Severe Weather Outbreak ($6.1 billion): A rash of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes swept through parts of the Southern Plains, Southeast and Ohio Valley March 2-3. At least 33 tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service, including EF2 tornadoes near Kirby, Arkansas, and Fremont, Kentucky. Wind gusts from 70 to 90 mph hammered the Dallas-Fort Worth metro.

4. South, East Severe Weather Outbreak II ($1.9 billion): Tornadoes tore across parts of the Southeast March 24-26, including Rolling Fork, Silver City, Tchula, Winona and Amory, Mississippi, claiming 21 lives in Mississippi and another in Alabama. An EF3 tornado ripped through parts of Troup County, Georgia. Damaging winds also swept through parts of Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

5. Central, Eastern Tornado Outbreak ($5.4 billion): At least 145 tornadoes, along with damaging thunderstorm winds, tore through large swaths of the Midwest, Tennessee Valley and East from March 31 through April 1. Among those was an EF3 tornado in the Little Rock, Arkansas, metro area; deadly tornadoes in McNairy County, Tennessee, and Sullivan County, Indiana; and Delaware's widest tornado on record.

6. Midwest, East Severe Weather Outbreak ($2.8 billion): At least 35 tornadoes, along with damaging thunderstorm winds, once again swept through parts of the Midwest and East April 4-6. That included an early-morning EF2 tornado near Bollinger, Missouri, which claimed five lives.

7. Mid-April Severe Weather ($1.1 billion): Severe thunderstorms with destructive winds, hail and a few tornadoes hammered areas from the Florida Panhandle to the mid-Mississippi Valley, including parts of the St. Louis metro area, on April 15.

8. Mid-April Severe Weather II ($1.9 billion): This two-day severe weather event from the Plains to the upper Midwest spawned tornadoes in central Oklahoma on April 19 including a deadly EF3 tornado in McClain County and another in the city of Shawnee. Hail larger than baseballs was reported in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area on April 20.

9. Late April Severe Weather ($1.1 billion): Severe thunderstorms rumbled from parts of Texas to Florida from April 25-27. This included a number of destructive hailstorms in Texas, one of which damaged over 100 vehicles in Rusk County.

10. Early May Severe Weather ($1.1 billion): Severe thunderstorms with tennis ball or larger hail and a few tornadoes swarmed over parts of the Missouri Valley, mid-Mississippi Valley and Texas from May 6-8.

11. Mid-May Severe Weather ($2.4 billion): Severe thunderstorms with several tornadoes and large hail occurred in the Plains from parts of Nebraska to Colorado to Texas.

12. Texas Hailstorms ($1 billion): Up to tennis-ball-sized hail was dumped on parts of north-central Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area on May 19.

13. Mid-June South Severe Weather ($2.6 billion): Clusters of severe thunderstorms from June 11-14 swarmed over parts of the South, from New Mexico and Texas to the Southeast. These storms produced more giant hailstones, some the size of grapefruit or larger, in parts of Texas and Mississippi. It also produced a swarm of wind damage throughout the Deep South from Arkansas and northern Louisiana to Georgia and northern Florida.

14. Mid-June Southern Severe Weather II ($2.6 billion): Another multi-day severe weather siege, unusual for mid-June in the Deep South, hammered areas from Oklahoma and Texas to Georgia and Florida. Over 70 tornadoes were confirmed, including EF3 twisters in Louin, Mississippi, and Perryton, Texas. What was likely a derecho roared from Kansas and western Oklahoma to Florida June 15-16, with damaging gusts over 75 mph in spots.

15. Late June Severe Weather ($3.3 billion): This siege of storms from June 21-26 began in the High Plains, including destructive hailstorms in Colorado, one of which injured almost 100 concertgoers near Denver,​ and a deadly tornado in Matador, Texas. It eventually spread into the Midwest and East from June 24-26 with over 700 reports of high winds or wind damage from thunderstorms.

2​017 is the full-year record. There were 22 billion-dollar disasters in 2017, responsible for an estimated $383.7 billion in damage, both the most of any year since 1980. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria were responsible for 86% of that damage tally in 2017.

S​evere thunderstorm events are most frequent. According to NOAA's statistics, there have been 180 severe thunderstorm events that have caused at least $1 billion in damage in the U.S. from 1980 through July 2023. That's an average of four such events each year.

Recent plague of billion-dollar disasters: The past three years have had a combined 60 billion-dollar disasters, the most of any three-year period in NOAA records dating to 1980. That included 13 to 14 severe thunderstorm billion-dollar events each year from 2020 through 2022.

Hurricanes and tropical storms are costliest. Since 1980, America's costliest weather disasters have almost exclusively been hurricanes. For example, 2005's Hurricane Katrina's damage toll – adjusted for inflation to 2023 dollars – was $193.8 billion, almost five times the total of all 15 of 2023's disasters so far. Last year, Hurricane Ian inflicted an estimated $115.2 billion in damage.

^ This only covers January to July 2023 and it is already very costly and deadly. ^

https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2023-08-08-billion-dollar-disasters-january-july-2023-noaa