NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information released their annual report of weather disasters that cost at least one billion dollars a piece. 2022 saw eighteen of those events, which ties it in third place for highest number of billion dollar weather disasters in a year. Those 18 included one drought, one flood, eleven severe storms, three tropical cyclones, one wildfire, and one winter storm which are illustrated in the image below. Those 18 weather events were responsible for 474 deaths, directly or indirectly. Since 1980 that is the 8th most disaster-related fatalities in the contiguous U.S.
2020 saw 22 of these billion-dollar weather events, 2021 saw 21 such events, and 2011 and 2017 are tied with 2022 each marking 18 disasters that cost at least one billion dollars. 2022 also ranks in third place for total cost of these disasters combined. So far these 2022 disasters have cost at least $165 billion, but the cost of the winter storm through the central and eastern part of the U.S. in December has not been finalized. The only years with more expensive disasters (costs adjusted according to the Consume Price Index) were 2017 and 2005. Click here to see how these sums are calculated and how past data is adjusted so it can be used to compare with current costs.Â
So how does this compare to past years? If you look at the "climatological average," considering data from 1980 through 2022, the yearly average is 7.9 of these billion-dollar disasters. When you trim that data set to only look at the average of the five most recent years (2018-2022), the number more than doubles to 17.8 events per year. Again those are averages, but the trend increasing that quickly is worth considering.Â
