Excerpt:
Major weather disasters have been striking the United States much more often in recent years as the global climate changes.
The damage from weeks of storms and flooding in California could exceed a billion dollars, according to the state’s emergency agency and private weather forecasters. That toll comes on the heels of 2022, one of the worst on record for large-scale weather and climate disasters around the United States, according to data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“It’s likely that this is going to be at least several billion dollars,” said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather. “It will unfortunately join the club of billion-dollar disasters.”
The nation was struck last year by 18 disasters that caused more than $1 billion each in damage. That’s the third-highest number in the 43 years that NOAA has been keeping records.
The only other years on record with more billion-dollar disasters, adjusted for inflation, are 2020 and 2021…
