A trio of major hurricanes, Harvey, Irma and Maria, contributed hundreds of billions to the total. But the year was seemingly mired in disaster, from a freeze in the Southeast that damaged fruit crops in March, to hail storms that whipped across Colorado, Oklahoma and other central states in May, to the tornadoes that struck the Midwest in June.
Unusual consequences of extreme weather could be found all over the map. Thirteen cows died in a field in Pennington County, South Dakota, after ingesting anthrax spores from the soil; they had changed their grazing patterns during a drought that lasted much of the year in South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana. The cows’ demise was a small part of the $2.5 billion of damage that struck the three states.
In all, there were 16 natural disasters that caused more than $1 billion of damage each in 2017. In 1980, when NOAA first started tallying records, there were only three such disasters, adjusted for inflation. This year’s $306 billion in damage broke a record set in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina contributed to a total of $215 billion in damage, also adjusted for inflation.
Scientists cannot always say with certainty that a given natural disaster was influenced by climate change. But some may be related to warming, and the contiguous United States experienced its third-warmest year on record in 2017. The temperature average was 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.
Here are the 16 billion-dollar disasters from 2017: Some made headlines for weeks, and some were simply overtaken in the public’s consciousness by the next one.
Hurricane Harvey, August: $125 billion
Hurricane Maria, September: $90 billion
Hurricane Irma, September: $50 billion
Western wildfires and California firestorm, autumn: $18 billion
Colorado hailstorm, May: $3.4 billion
Severe weather in the South and Southeast, March: $2.6 billion
Drought in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, spring through autumn: $2.5 billion
Minnesota hailstorm, June: $2.4 billion
Midwest tornado outbreak, March: $2.1 billion
Tornado outbreak in Central and Southeast states, March: $1.8 billion
Missouri and Arkansas flooding, May: $1.7 billion
California flooding, February: $1.5 billion
Widespread Midwest severe weather, June: $1.5 billion
Severe weather in Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa, June: $1.4 billion
Southern tornado outbreak, January: $1.1 billion
Southeast freeze, March: $1 billion
The New York Times