2012 ranks as 2nd costliest year with 11 billion-dollar disasters causing more than $110 billion in damages

NCDC Releases 2012 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Information | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) National Climatic Data CenterSkip to main contentSkip to site searchHomeClimate InformationData AccessCustomer SupportAbout NCDCSearch Field: Home > News > NCDC Releases 2012 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters InformationNCDC Releases 2012 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Information Submitted by susan.osborne on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 10:41am

U.S. 2012 Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters. Full-size version also available.

According to NCDC’s 2012 weather and climate disasters information, 2012 saw 11 weather and climate disaster events each with losses exceeding $1 billion in damages. This makes 2012 the second costliest year since 1980, with a total of more than $110 billion in damages throughout the year. The 2012 total damages rank only behind 2005, which incurred $160 billion in damages due in part to four devastating land-falling hurricanes.

The 2012 billion-dollar events included seven severe weather and tornado events, two tropical cyclone events, and the yearlong drought and its associated wildfires. These 11 events killed over 300 people and had devastating economic effects on the areas impacted. With 11 events, 2012 also ranks second highest in total number of billion-dollar events behind 2011, which had 14 events.

The two major drivers of the damage costs in 2012 were Sandy at approximately $65 billion and the yearlong drought at approximately $30 billion. Sandy’s large size, with tropical storm force winds extending nearly 500 miles from the center, led to record storm surge, large-scale flooding, wind damage, and mass power outages along much of the East Coast.

The yearlong drought, which affected more than half the country for the majority of 2012, was the largest drought extent in the United States since the 1930s. U.S. Department of Agriculture Drought Disaster Declarations reached more than 2,600 of the Nation’s 3,143 counties. While drought impacts are often most costly to agricultural centers, their conditions also led to several devastating wildfires that burned over 9 million acres nationwide during 2012.

See NCDC’s Billion-Dollar Weather/Climate Disasters report for more information on the weather and climate events that have had the greatest economic impacts from 1980 to 2012.

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The costliest just got even costlier

The document titled "The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones" is *the* official go-to source for those statistics and related information.

It was first published in 1978 (at least that's the first listing of it here). At that time, the costliest U.S. tropical cyclone was "only" $2.1 billion (which when adjusted for inflation to 2010 would be $11.76 billion).

The report has periodically been updated, and the latest, by Eric Blake and Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and Ethan Gibney of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), has just been posted.

My weather.com colleague Jon Erdman and I have compiled some highlights of new information and changes that are in this update.

Most notably, the estimate of direct damage produced by Hurricane Katrina is now $108 billion. As if the previous estimate of $81B wasn't stunning enough! That makes Katrina the first hundred billion dollar hurricane. And that's just for direct damage, i.e. it does not include the untold indirect economic losses (or, of course, the emotional suffering of survivors and the staggering number of people who lost their lives, notwithstanding the fatality estimate having been revised downward in this update).

Here are a few key excerpts from the report's analysis (my bold):

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The study by Jarrell et al. (1992) used 1990 census data to show that 85% of U.S. coastal residents from Texas to Maine had never experienced a direct hit by a major hurricane. This risk is higher today as an estimated 50 million residents have moved to coastal sections during the past twenty-five years.

The experience gained through the landfall of 7 major hurricanes during the past 7 years has not lessened an ever-growing concern brought by the continued increase in coastal populations.

Continued coastal growth and inflation will almost certainly result in every future major [Category 3+] landfalling hurricane (and even [some] weaker hurricanes and tropical storms) replacing one of the current costliest hurricanes. For example, all three of the U.S. hurricane landfalls of 2008 made the top 30 list, despite none of them being major hurricanes at landfall. [Stu's note: That includes not only Ike and Gustav, but even also Dolly.]

If warnings are heeded and preparedness plans developed, the death toll can be minimized. However, large property losses are inevitable in the absence of a significant change of attitude, policy, or laws governing building practices (codes and location) near the ocean.
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And:
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Katrina provided a grim reminder of what can happen in a hurricane landfall.

Sociologists estimate, however, that people only remember the worst effects of a hurricane for about seven years (B. Morrow, personal communication). One of the greatest concerns of the National Weather Service's (NWS) hurricane preparedness officials is that people will think that no more large loss of life will occur in a hurricane because of our advanced technology and improved hurricane forecasts.

Bill Read, current Director of NHC, as well as former NHC Directors, have repeatedly emphasized the great danger of a catastrophic loss of life in a future hurricane if proper preparedness plans for vulnerable areas are not formulated, maintained and executed.
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And now we head into the heart of the 2011 Atlantic/Caribbean/Gulf season. Although the official hurricane season as a whole extends from just after Memorial Day till after Thanksgiving, on average there's a very pronounced peak from mid-August through September and into October. It never ceases to fascinate me how, right on cue, in most years things really ramp up between now (August 10) and Labor Day. (Five named storms have already formed this season, but they've been fairly small and weak, none became a hurricane, and at least one probably wouldn't have even been designated as a tropical storm in the pre-satellite era.)

All years are not equally productive. What about the peak of this season? Well, in late July I posted this (below) on my Facebook TWC fan page. Hopefully I'll have to post something a couple months from now saying how wrong that assessment was!

But as I also alluded to, a critical factor in the outcome of a season no matter how many storms develop or how strong they become is exactly where they go. The pattern is sending mixed messages as to what the predominant steering flow will be as we head through the peak of this season. At times it's evoking 2004 (Caribbean/Florida/Gulf). Alternatively it has hinted at a repeat of 2010 (missing U.S. to east and south). There has been talk about resemblance to the mid-1950s (East Coast).

Regardless, remember that all it takes is one to bring disaster, like Andrew in 1992 and Allison in 2001 did, in otherwise relatively uneventful seasons. Both are in that Top 10 costliest list.

Let's hope for the best this year, yet be prepared just in case.

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Japan quake makes 2011 costliest disaster year (AFP)

BERLIN (AFP) – Japan's earthquake in March is set to make 2011 the costliest year to date for natural disasters, reinsurer Munich Re said on Tuesday, although the number of deaths globally is relatively low so far.

Total global losses from natural disasters for the first six months alone were $265 billion, easily exceeding the $220 billion recorded for the whole of 2005, previously the most expensive year to date, the German firm said.

The economic loss for the first half of 2011 was more than five times higher than the average of the past 10 years, Munich Re said, and more than double the total for 2010 of $130 billion.

Moreover, first-half losses are generally lower than second-half losses, which are often affected by hurricanes in the north Atlantic and typhoons in the northwest Pacific, Munich Re added.

Not all the damage will be covered by insurance companies however, with "insured losses" in the first six months some $60 billion, nearly five times the average since 2001.

"It is very rare for such an extreme accumulation of natural hazard events to be encountered," Munich Re, which is the world's top reinsurer, said in a statement.

The 9.0-magnitude quake on March 11, the strongest ever registered in Japan, caused losses of 210 billion euros, making it the costliest natural catastrophe on record, surpassing even Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005.

Katrina, which pummelled the southern United States in August and caused devastating flooding that swallowed 80 percent of New Orleans, caused $125 billion worth of damage.

Insured losses from Katrina were much higher at $62 billion, however, more than double the $30-billion bill for the Japanese quake, which also knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, leaking radiation.

The quake was also the biggest catastrophe to occur in the first half of 2011 in human terms.

At least 15,500 people died and and thousands are still missing after the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, which devastated entire cities along the northeast coast of Japan, Munich Re said.

In terms of the human cost overall, however, 2011 is relatively benign -- so far.

Natural disasters killed 19,380 people in the first six months, compared to 230,300 in 2010.

In January 2010 an earthquake in Haiti killed some 225,000 people, while more than 50,000 perished in heatwaves and forest fires in Russia. Thousands also died in earthquakes and floods in China and Pakistan.

The total number of loss-relevant natural events in the first six months of 2011 was 355, somewhat below the average for the previous 10 years of 390.

The next costliest natural disaster in the first half of 2011 was a severe earthquake that shook Christchurch, New Zealand, in February, causing $20 billion in damage and killing 181 people, Munich Re said.

Severe storms in the southern and midwest United States in April and May killed 520 people and caused $14.5 billion in damages, with insured losses around $10 billion.

Floods in Queensland in northeast Australia in December and January caused $7.3 billion in damage, $2.6 billion of it insured, and killed 35 people.

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