2017 comes in like a lion, setting records for storms
Few years have begun with as many costly events or tornadoes
If the first three months of the year are any indication, 2017 is shaping up as a disastrous and costly one because of weather in the USA.
Five weather disasters this year have caused at least $1 billion each in damage, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a report released Thursday.
That’s the highest tally on record for so early in the year and twice the average of 2.4 disasters, said NOAA, which has data going back to 1980.
The disasters include the California floods in February and the Southeast freeze last month.
The severe weather and tornado outbreak in the South in January that killed 24 people marks the deadliest event so far this year. A severe weather outbreak in the Midwest in early March that caused $1.5 billion in damage is the costliest.
The Storm Prediction Center confirms 2017 has been an unusually stormy year: As of Wednesday, the center has tallied 486 reports of tornadoes in the USA, almost double the to-date average of 252.
Another marker of extreme weather, the U.S. Climate Extremes Index, was also the highest on record for January through March and more than double the average, NOAA said. The climate extremes index tracks extremes in temperature, precipitation and drought across the contiguous 48 states.
The nation is seeing its secondwarmest start to the year on record, with a nationwide average temperature of 40.3 degrees, 5.1 degrees above average. Only 2012, at 41.4 degrees, tops that.
Six states — New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina — are experiencing their warmest year since records began in 1895.
No state has seen record cold, and only Washington is having a cooler-than-average start to the year.