U.S. Has Already Had Seven $1B+ Weather Disasters This Year

So fart this year, the nation has suffered seven weather
disasters costing $1 billion or more. 

If you think you've seen a lot of weather disaster coverage in this blog thingy so far this year, you're right. 

According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, the United States has seen seven weather disasters so far this year that each cost at least $1 billion.  That's a very fast pace of disasters for so early in the year. 

Five of the disasters were tornado and severe outbreaks in the South. Another was all those floods in California over the winter and early spring. 

The seventh one surprised me.  Remember that intense, but short cold wave in early February up here in New England and other parts of the Northeast? That one cost $1.6 billion, according to NCEI. 

I knew there was damage from that cold snap, considering high winds in parts of New England cut power, which led to frozen pipes and interior water damage in many homes. Apparently, there were some timber losses here and there in Maine and elsewhere too. The rapidly falling temperatures caused water in trees to abruptly freeze and expand, splitting some trees. 

The most expensive of the disasters was a rash of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms that hit wide areas of the Southern Plains, Southeast and Ohio Valley. The cost was $4.5 billion.

Another tornado outbreak on March 31-April 1 in the South and East cost $4.3 billion. Those California floods cost $3.6 billion.  

Yet another burst of storms less than a week later caused $2.2 billion in damage. Another $1 billion or so in damages came in a severe weather outbreak on April 15,  

A steam devil on Lake Champlain during the intense Arctic
outbreak in early February. That cold wave was one
of seven weather disasters costing $1 billion or more
so far this year. 

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes tend to be the most frequent source of calamities costing $1 billion or more, On average, the U.S, sees three or four such events every year, notes the Weather Channel. 

It is worrying that we've already had five billion dollar tornado outbreaks, and the season is still fairly  young. We are in the peak of the season through this month into early June. 

Though severe weather is forecast in parts of the nation in the next few days, I don't think any of them will be super large scale.

But you never know what will happen later this month.

The pace of inflation-adjusted billion dollar weather disasters is increasing. We've had 60 such events in the past three years. 

Climate change might be one, but definitely not the only contributor to this trend. People are building and moving to vulnerable, storm-prone areas, which boost disaster costs. 

In parts of the Midwest and South, cities and suburbs continue to sprawl outward away from old downtowns, giving tornadoes many more targets to hit.  A century ago, if a tornado just missed, say, the middle of St. Louis, no biggie. It would just hit a minimal number of houses.

 Now, the same tornado would plow through suburbs packed with homes and businesses.