US hits record for weather disasters
UNITED STATES: With three strong hurricanes, wildfires, hail, flooding, tornadoes and drought, the US racked up a record bill last year for weather disasters: US$306 billion (NZ$426b).
The US had 16 weather disasters last year with damage exceeding a billion dollars, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said yesterday. That ties 2011 for the number of billion-dollar disasters, but the total cost blew past the previous record of US$215b, set in 2005.
Costs are adjusted for inflation, and NOAA keeps track of billiondollar weather disasters going back to 1980.
Three of the five most expensive hurricanes in US history hit last year. Hurricane Harvey, which caused flooding in Texas, cost US$125b, second only to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, while Hurricane Maria’s damage bill in Puerto Rico totalled US$90b, ranking it third, NOAA said. Hurricane Irma caused US$50b worth of damage, mainly in Florida, making it the fifth-most expensive hurricane ever.
Western wildfires fanned by heat racked up US$18 billion in damage, triple the previous wildfire record, according to NOAA.
Besides Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina all had more than US$1b in damage from weather disasters in 2017.
‘‘While we have to be careful about knee-jerk cause-effect discussions, [many scientific studies] show that some of today’s extremes have climate change fingerprints on them,’' said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, a past president of the American Meteorological Society.
The US averages six billiondollar weather disasters each year, costing a bit more than US$40b annually.
The increase in billion-dollar weather disasters was likely to be due to a combination of more flooding, heat and storm surges from climate change along with other, non-climate change factors, such as where buildings were sited, where people moved to, and how valuable their property was, said Deke Arndt, NOAA’s climate monitoring chief. ‘‘Perhaps it is time to mandate urban development in a more resilient and sustainable manner, given the increasing frequency of weather extremes, especially along the nation’s coasts,’' said Susan Cutter, director of the University of South Carolina’s Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute.
NOAA also said that 2017 was the third-hottest year on record for the Lower 48 states, with an annual temperature of 12.6 degrees C – 1.4C warmer than the average for the 20th century.
Only 2012 and 2016 were warmer. The five warmest years for the Lower 48 states have all happened since 2006.
Arndt said the US – which has had above-normal annual temperatures for 21 straight years – was showing the same warming effects as the rest of the world. The burning of coal, oil and gas emits heat-trapping gases that change Earth’s climate.
NOAA said 2017 was the third straight year that all 50 states had above-average temperatures for the year. Five states – Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and New Mexico – had their warmest year ever.
"Some of today's extremes have climate change fingerprints on them."
Professor Marshall Shepherd, University of Georgia