Led by a record-costly swarm of severe weather episodes, the contiguous U.S. suffered 28 billion- dollar weather disasters in 2023, the highest in inflation-adjusted data going back to 1980. The total cost, $92.9 billion, was the ninth-highest on record. NOAA’s disaster list included 19 severe storm events, two tropical cyclones, four floods, one winter weather event, one drought, and one wildfire event. NOAA’s 1980-2023 annual inflation-adjusted average is 8.5 billion-dollar events, but over the past five years (2019-2023), that average has more than doubled, to 20.4 events.
yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/01/u-s-billion-dollar-weather-disasters-set-an-all-time-record-in-2023-with-28/?utm_source=Weekly+News+from+Yale+Climate+Connections&utm_campaign=8f3df19b1f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_01_11_04_59&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-8f3df19b1f-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D