America smashed the record for billion-dollar weather disasters this year with a deadly dozen - and counting.
With an almost biblical onslaught of twisters, floods, snow, drought and wildfire, the U.S. in 2011 has seen more weather catastrophes that caused at least $1 billion in damage than it did in all of the 1980s, even after the dollar figures from back then are adjusted for inflation.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration added two disasters to the list Wednesday, bringing the total to 12. The two are the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona wildfires and the mid-June tornadoes and severe weather.
NOAA uses $1 billion as a benchmark for the worst weather disasters.
Extreme weather in America this year has killed more than 1,000 people, said National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes. The dozen billion-dollar disasters alone add up to $52 billion.
The old record for $1 billion disasters was nine, in 2008.
Mr. Hayes, a meteorologist since 1970, said he has never seen a year for extreme weather like this, calling it “the deadly, destructive and relentless 2011.”
And this year’s total may not stop at 12. Officials are still adding up the damage from Tropical Storm Lee and the pre-Halloween Northeast snowstorm, and so far each is at $750 million. And there’s still nearly a month left in the year.
Scientists blame an unlucky combination of global warming and freak chance. They say even with the long-predicted increase in weather extremes triggered by manmade climate change, 2011 in the U.S. was wilder than they predicted. For example, the six large outbreaks of twisters can’t be attributed to global warming, scientists say.
“The degree of devastation is extreme in and of itself, and it would be tempting to say it’s a sign of things to come, though we would be hard-pressed to see such a convergence of circumstances occurring in one single year again for a while,” said Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Another factor in the rising number of billion-dollar calamities: More people are living in areas prone to disasters.
The number of weather catastrophes that pass the billion-dollar mark when adjusted into constant dollars is increasing with each decade. In the 1980s, the country averaged slightly more than one a year. In the 1990s, it was 3.8 a year. It jumped to 4.6 in the first decade of this century. And in the past two years, it has averaged 7.5.
Other years had higher overall damage figures because of one gargantuan disaster, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a 1988 drought.
But this isn’t just about numbers.
“Each of these events is a huge disaster for victims who experience them,” NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said in an email. “They are an unprecedented challenge for the nation.”
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