Sandy the 11th U.S. billion-dollar disaster of 2012
Devastating Hurricane Sandy was the eleventh billion-dollar weather-related disaster in the U.S. so far this year, and the most expensive, said insurance broker AON Benfield in their November 8, 2012 Catastrophe Report. This puts 2012 in second place for most U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters behind 2011, when NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) counted fourteen such disasters. AON Benfield rated seventeen events as billion-dollar weather disasters in 2011, so the actual number of such disasters has considerable uncertainty depending upon who is doing the estimates. NCDC has not yet released their official figures for 2012's billion-dollar weather disasters, and we might expect that their total could be 20% lower than AON Benfield's, judging by what happened in 2011. This would give 2012 nine billion-dollar weather disasters, which would still put 2011 in second place for most billion-dollar weather disasters. Although damages due to weather-related disasters are increasing, we cannot yet say climate change is to partially to blame. There are too many other complicating factors such as increases in wealth and population that may be responsible for the rise in damages, and there is too much noise in the data to see the signal of climate change, as I explain in my January 2012 post, "Damage losses and climate change". We are better off looking at the atmosphere itself to find evidence of climate change, and there are plenty of examples of that--such as the record loss of Arctic sea ice this summer.
Figure 1. The escalators down to the South Ferry subway station in Lower Manhattan's Financial District lie flooded in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's storm surge on October 29, 2012. Total economic damage from Hurricane Sandy has been estimated at $30 - $50 billion by EQECAT. Image credit: New York MTA and Associated Press.
Figure 2. The U.S. has experienced eleven weather-related disasters costing at least $1 billion in 2012, according to data taken from the AON Benfield October 2012 Catastrophe Report. AON Benfield has not made a damage estimate for the 2012 Midwest drought, but according to National Crop Insurance Services, crop insurance losses alone will total $20 billion. The total cost of the drought could be more than $77 billion, said Purdue University economist Chris Hurt in August. As Nick Sundt of the WWF summarizes in a nice blog post, this year will probably be the second most costly year since 1980 in terms of billion-dollar weather-related disasters.
Figure 3. Number of weather-related U.S. billion-dollar disasters per year (blue bars) from 1980 - 2012, and the total cost of these disasters (red and dark blue lines, with the red line showing the inflation-adjusted costs.) Image credit: NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)
Winter Storm Brutus bringing blizzard conditions to Montana
Winter Storm Brutus is bringing blizzard conditions to Northeast Montana, with heavy snow and high winds that have gusted to 45 mph. Brutus has dumped a widespread area of 4 - 6 inches of snow over large portions of Montana since Thursday afternoon, with 7 - 10 inches reported in the Great Falls area and 17" in the mountains near Glacier National Park. According to the Glasgow, MT NWS Facebook page, the current storm has the potential to be a top-ten snowfall event for the area, with records going back 115 years. The storm will affect Montana and western North Dakota through Saturday morning, then push north-northeastwards into Canada.
Top ten 2-day snow events in Glasgow, Montana history:
1 15.0" 4/18/1896
2 14.3" 12/27/2003
3 14.1" 4/ 3/1940, 4/ 2/1940
5 14.0" 11/19/1941
6 13.4" 10/13/2008
7 13.3" 11/ 6/2000
8 13.0" 10/12/2008, 4/ 9/1995, 1/26/1916
The Atlantic hurricane season is not over yet
There are still three weeks left in the Atlantic hurricane season, and the way this year has gone, I wouldn't be surprised to see the season's 20th named storm--Tropical Storm Valerie--sometime this month. One potential candidate is a concentrated area of heavy thunderstorms that has developed about 800 miles west-northwest of the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of Africa. However, wind shear is a high 20 - 30 knots over the disturbance, and any development should be slow. Our two most reliable models, the GFS and ECMWF, do not develop the disturbance, and show it drifting slowly to the northwest over the next few days. In their 7 am EST Tropical Weather Outlook, NHC gave the disturbance just a 20% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone by Sunday morning.
A better candidate to become Valerie is an area of low pressure that is predicted to develop between Bermuda and Puerto Rico by the middle of next week. The GFS model shows this low becoming a subtropical cyclone as it gets pulled to the north or north-northeast late next week.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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BUT in the same way you can say more CO2 traps more heat due to physics, you can say warmer oceans have more energy to create stronger hurricanes. Ocean temperature data is pretty straight forward.
This morning I found good graphs that were ocean specific, here is an overall temp graphic.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst2/diagno stics/global/nh sh/annual_bar.png
if the ocean is 0.3F warmer due to climate change in the North Atlantic, there is over 1790 ktons of additional energy in the top 1.6 inches of the ocean (edit> under Sandy).
Or and 89.5% of an atom bombs worth of additional energy due to climate change in the top foot of water under Hurricane Sandy.
Storm diameter 1040miles = 23.668 trillion sq ft.
ocean temp up 0.3 F * 23.668 trillion sq ft = 7.1004 trillion BTU = 1,790 ktons.
1 gallon fills a sq ft to 1.6"
Does that sound like there is a possibility that the storm was not strengthened by the additional heat? and that extra speed, wave height, and rain just missed all the valuable parts of the east coast? Explain that to me.
You may want to revise the location and dates for Sandy's damage. It was not just the NE and not just on October 29th.
#45 I thought it was funny.
Matter of fact why won't people use my system?.The number system.
Here's how it works.The year and number.
Example:storm 1,012-13
the other storm 2,012-13 and so on and so on
there?.
Oh, come on! That's funny. Lighten up Francis. The post was very amuzing...
Who is Francis? Not me...
Quoting hydrus:
I hope your right, but 200 years is far fetched in my eyes. The region gets its share of storms, and I would not be surprised if something like Sandy struck them again next year with the worlds weather changing the way it is.
Thanks for the response.
Saw roughly 400 years ago for historical comparison here and at weatherhistorian's blog. I picked 200 as a compromise. I can't help observing that we humans, in the US and possibly elsewhere, are cycling through that part of the circle where "middle of the road" seems a lost art......I believe the Earths weather has changed significantly the past 30 years, cant imagine what things will be like in 200.-hydrus.
NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER COLLEGE PARK MD
112 PM EST FRI NOV 09 2012
VALID 12Z MON NOV 12 2012 - 12Z FRI NOV 16 2012
PRELIMINARY MEDIUM RANGE GRAPHICS MAINTAINED THE CONSISTENT
GFS/ECMWF/UKMET APPROACH WITH AN EXPANSIVE ARCTIC FRONTAL
PROGRESSION ACROSS THE EASTERN STATES...GREAT LAKES...AND INTO THE
DEEP SOUTH/SOUTHERN TEXAS. BIG NEWS WILL BE THE SHARP THERMAL
CONTRASTS AHEAD AND BEHIND THE FRONT AS IT PRESSES EASTWARD
BETWEEN DAY 3-5.
FOR SOME DAYS NOW...THE H85 TEMP FORECASTS IMMEDIATELY AHEAD AND
BEHIND THE FRONT HAVE BEEN ON THE ORDER OF 10-15C. WITH SUCH A
SHARP CONTRAST IN TEMPERATURES...SURFACE PRESSURE
GRADIENTS...WINDS AND SURFACE-BASED LIFT IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE
FRONT WILL PRODUCE DRAMATIC SENSIBLE WEATHER CHANGES ALONG WITH
VERY HEAVY RAINFALL. THE HEAVY RAINFALL SCENARIO SHOULD PLAY OUT
ACROSS THE OZARKS AND MIDWEST WITH A WIDE OPEN GULF AND LOW-LEVEL
MOISTURE PLUME. DEEP-LAYERED WARM ADVECTION STREAMING NORTHWARD
AHEAD OF THE FRONT WILL LIKELY PRODUCE MAX/MIN TEMPERATURE
READINGS THAT WILL BE A GOOD 15-20 F ABOVE SEASONAL NORMS. BEHIND
THE FRONT...THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE. SOME 15-25F BELOW NORMAL.
FOR DAYS 6-7...AGREE WITH THE MID SHIFT THAT A GFS/GEFS MEAN AND
ECMWF ENSEMBLE MEAN APPROACH APPEARS BEST TO HANDLE THE DEVELOPING
SPLIT-FLOW SCENARIO ALONG THE WEST COAST AND DESERT SOUTHWEST.
Quite bit of rain with this next system.
Yeah it may be exciting for some to see their "wish come true".But not for people that have to pay out of our pockets.Thank goodness this isn't official.
Sgt Hulka in Stripes to the new recurit.
One of those things you just have to see.
STRIPES, Bill Murray.
Got it.
You'll have to excuse me; I'm an old man and I am overdue for yelling at a cloud.
00z
12z
Bored, are we?
LOL..or Captain Howdy..
That is one movie I will not watch by myself..hands down the scariest movie of all time..
StL up to 71, I'm about 66. S winds now to 24 gusts
Edit: 77th post, how appropriate!
The waters have already been cooled off by Sandy and cold fronts, it should only be, if anything, a weak tropical storm.
I'm right with you Largo! It's currently 76° in Ft Myers with the winds NE at 7. Humidity only 31% and Dewpoint of 43° Loving it!
a weak tropical storm on the east coast during august of this year would have been welcome for some regions due to the drought but as of NOW after Sandy and a noreaster, nah..there would be nothing "weak" about that storm to an already devastated area..
Euro at 240 hours:
GFS at 300 hours:
And GFS at 360 hours:
The NAO will likely be crashing at this time, which is bad:
/sarcasm
That would be horrible for the Northeast after what they have been through
On a serious note, the NE could get another hit in after the 10 day period. Of course it wouldn't be Sandy but it could bring some bad impacts yet again. The GFS and Euro are now both showing a storm headed for the NE. Seeing this consistency starts to get me worried as that area has seen 2 storms in 2 weeks. Hopefully this storm on the models doesn't happen, but with the NAO expected to fall and some consistency already I think it could happen.
God, no. I know it's so far out, but this can't come to fruition. We can't handle it here. Keeping an eye on it, and am prepared for any storm right now anyway because you just never know.
...you'd think the head of the CIA would be sneaky enough to not get caught...
...Have you been able to sort out your Rx challenge?
i thought you were joking
article here
Not really yet. I've finally gotten in contact with my doctors manager I'm good friends with, and I think she will be able to at least get them written hopefully on Monday. The surgical center in NJ is still out of power, I can't believe it.
And even though I don't need all of my prescriptions written right now, I am not taking any chances of another storm coming in the next two weeks and will hopefully just get all of them so at least I have them, and don't have to worry for another month!
Wow Sky...glad to hear that some good came out of Sandy.
{Chief P puts his tongue in his cheek}
Hope the next one on the Gulf Coast of Texas does the same, and takes all the brown water away and replaces it with the blue stuff...tired of looking at the "Gulf of Yoohoo";>P
{Chief P now takes his tongue out of his cheek}
I thought it was a joke too. Especially with the /sarcasm flag at the bottom of the post.
Washingtonian - That picture of your girlfriend is hideous...
Why oh why.
Who feels that some kind of system might actually pan out? I know it's very far in advance but.. it's making me feel a bit uneasy.
UUGGHH...time to weigh in with my humble opinion.
Thank you CyberTeddy for your comments.
First, who cares if TWC is using this for a marketing strategy. Does it really hurt anyone for TWC to make more money? The pieces of pie don't get smaller, the pie gets bigger (Reaganomics {Voodoo Economics} quote...yes, I am from that era). TWC makes more money=more people get jobs=more money spent=more taxes to U.S. and state coffers=more tax money spent on...whatever...maybe reconstruction, disaster relief, disaster preparedness, IDK...sweat gland blockage on the Monarch Butterfly.
(I am not a Monarch Butterfly hater...my father cultivates, raises, protects them in his greenhouse to re-populate them in the Houston area).
And, no one gets hurt by naming winter storms. But...if ONLY ONE PERSON is helped by naming a winter storm (some ordinary citizen who is not weather-savvy but may seek help or prepare because of hearing that a storm is 'named' and may be dangerous)then this program is considered a success, IMHO.
Additionally, if named storms help the members of this blog track, comment on, and categorize them to avoid confusion...what is the big deal? IMHO, "over-hype" made my job easier...the more people prepared (or evacuated my Emergency Services District), the 'easier' my job was.
{Now back to our regularly scheduled program on "Global Warming...He Said/She Said", a documentary of two warring factions};>P
Respectfully submitted to all the members of this blog,
Retired Chief P
Naming winter storms may be harmless, but if the insurance companies treat named winter storms like named tropical storms, they can invoke the "Named storm deductible" rules. This rule is in Texas and other states. It can increase deductibles significantly. I do not see a reason to name winter storms if it is going to impact homeowner insurance.
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