American On Pace For Record Number Of Billion-Dollar Disasters In 2021 -USA!! USA!! USA!! USA!!

[hatrack]

The U.S. has seen 18 weather and climate disasters costing at least $1 billion so far this year, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This year’s disasters include the February cold snap in Texas, wildfires out West, and 20 named storms so far in the Atlantic basin. 2021 is on pace to break the record for billion-dollar weather disasters, 22, which was set last year. Already, this year’s disasters have inflicted a greater toll, causing $104.8 billion in damages, compared with $100.2 billion in total last year, and killing 538 people, more than double the number killed in all of 2020.



The growing number of weather disasters means there is less time to recover between floods, heat waves, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other such events. The interval between billion-dollar weather disasters, which averaged 82 days in the 1980s, has dropped to just 18 days on average today, according to an analysis from Climate Central.

The rise in billion-dollar disasters is being driven, in part, by people moving to disaster-prone areas, The Washington Post reports. The growth of buildings and infrastructure in such regions means that severe weather inflicts more damage. At the same time, climate change is fueling more powerful disasters. In the first 9 months of 2021, the Lower 48 states were around 1 degree C warmer than the 20th-century average.

EDIT

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/u-s-on-pace-for-record-number-of-billion-dollar-weather-disasters

[jimfields33]

1. Seriously they are comparing a billion dollar event to 1982?

In 1982, it would take ten time the damage to get to a billion compared to today. A roof in 1982 cost 4,000 to today 17,000. I’m not sure why they compared monetary.

[NickB79]

2. They are adjusting for inflation

Since records began in 1980, the U.S. has sustained 308 separate weather and climate disasters where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (based on the CPI adjustment to 2021) per event. The total cost of these 308 events exceeds $2.085 trillion. Disaster costs over the last five years (2017-2021) will exceed a record $700 billion, reflecting the increased exposure and vulnerability of the U.S. to extreme weather and climate events.

What's scary is that 33% of that $2 trillion in damage occurred in just the past 5 years, out of 40 yr of data compilation.