Throughout 2022, there were 18 weather events considered extreme, resulting in at least $1 billion worth of damage each, according to a report. In total, the damage from every climate disaster throughout last year caused more than $165 billion in damage.
The report was released on Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Officials with the administration shared that 2022 was the third costliest year on record, with droughts, hurricanes, severe storms, wildfires, and other weather events all taking their toll.
Among the most notable major disasters to hit the United States last year were three hurricanes, tornadoes in the south, wildfires in the west, and drought throughout the country. Hurricane Fiona, Hurricane Ian, and Hurricane Nicole were each responsible for at least $1 billion in damage alone.
However, Ian was the most destructive storm, as the havoc it wreaked on southwestern Florida resulted in nearly $113 billion in damage, the report found.
“Hurricane Ian devastated parts of Florida in September and was the third-costliest US hurricane on record, behind Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Harvey (2017),” the report stated.
Rick Spinrad, NOAA’s Administrator, shared at a conference on Tuesday that nearly every region in the country had at least one billion-dollar event last year. Something he says means no one is safe from extreme weather.
“It is a reality that regardless of where you are in the country, where you call home, you’ve likely experienced a high-impact weather event firsthand,” Spinrad said at the annual American Meteorological Society conference.
Other events to have a massive impact included the extreme drought across the western US, NOAA shared. An estimated $22.2 billion in damages were accrued because of the drought, making it one of the most costly ever.
“Drought impacted much of the western half of the US for a majority of the year with many major reservoirs at or near record-low levels,” the report said.
As for tornadoes, NOAA said that the total number of more than 1,300 was on pace for yearly averages.
To calculate the damage totals, researchers used data from insurance companies, state agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The administration first started tracking economic and societal impacts that climate disasters had on the nation in 1980.
On record, there have been 341 events that caused at least $1 billion in damage, for a total amount of $2.47 trillion in damage, according to NOAA.
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