U.S. climate disasters, severe storms cost $45 billion in 2019, report finds

Fourteen climate disasters and severe weather events in the U.S. cost $45 billion last year, according to a new report by the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Two of those events happened in North Texas, including a hailstorm in March and a tornado outbreak in October. Both weather events cost at least $1 billion each, according to the report.

Severe storms that swept through North Texas on March 24, produced hail from Fort Worth to Denton to McKinney. Collin County got the worst of the storm, which saw 2.75-inch hailstones between Frisco and McKinney, and hailstones between 1.5 to 2 inches in and around Prosper, McKinney and Frisco, according to the National Weather Service.

“For anyone one location to see hailstones the size of that magnitude — it’s pretty rare,” weather service meteorologist Joey Pica said in March.

North Texas was hit with another round of costly and severe storms on Oct. 20, when a 10 tornadoes tore through the area. The strongest tornado of the night was an EF-3 that traveled about 15 miles from northwest Dallas to east Richardson, according to the weather service.

The Insurance Council of Texas estimated about $2 billion in insured losses as a result of those tornadoes across North Texas. That would mean the tornadoes were the costliest severe weather event in North Texas’ history, according to Camille Garcia, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Council of Texas.

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Other weather events on the list include: a wildfire event in Alaska and California; Tropical Storm Imelda, which hit the Texas coast in September; Hurricane Dorian, three inland floods affecting the Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi rivers; and six other severe storms across the country. Each weather event cost at least $1 billion and caused 44 fatalities, according to the report.

The U.S. experienced 119 weather and climate disasters in the last decade that cost at least $1 billion, totaling more than $800 billion. In the 2000s, only 59 weather events were that costly.

In the last 39 years, 258 billion-dollar disasters have cost more than $1.75 trillion in damages, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.