News - Blogs - 2011 The year of the disaster

2011: The year of the disaster
Published: 12/14/2011 12:55 PM
Last Modified: 12/14/2011 12:55 PM

Courtesy NOAA

I’ve said before how expensive disasters have been this year. In August, there were nine disasters with damage estimates totaling $1 billion.

That tied the record for billion-dollar disasters set in 2008. And it was only August with a lot of snow and hurricane to come. And it did.

There have now been 12 disasters this year with damage of at least $1 billion, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Those 12 disasters have caused about $52 billion in damage so far this year.

While that is not the most in dollar amounts compared to previous years (that dubious distinction goes to 2005, thanks to the $133 billion caused by Hurricane Katrina), it has blown away the number of large disasters to occur in a year.

The last blog I did on these disasters included a nice summary of them. Here are the ones that have been added since then.

Wildfires in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona this summer just crossed the $1 billion threshold. The Bastrop Fire in Texas, southeast of Austin, was named the most destructive fire in Texas history, with 1,500 homes destroyed. In Arizona, the Wallow Fire burned more than 500,000 acres, making it the second largest in state history. More than 150,000 acres burned in New Mexico, making that the state’s largest fire. Just in Texas, more than 3 million acres burned across the state between spring and fall and caused $750 million in damage just from the loss of property, timber and agriculture. The fires caused five deaths.

Hurricane Irene may have been seen as a bust in the major metropolitan areas it threatened, but the people who waded through the water in New Jersey, New York and Vermont have a different story. Irene made landfall in North Carolina as a Category 1, but marched right up the coast maintaining that strength before going over land in the New England states. Wind damaged homes and property in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. Seven million homes and businesses lost power and numerous tornadoes spun out of the hurricane. In all, the damage topped $7.3 billion and caused at least 45 deaths.

A June 18-22 tornado outbreak across the Midwest and south also recently crossed the $1 billion threshold as well. About 81 tornadoes hit Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia, North and South Carolina, led to $1.3 billion in damage and three deaths.

There are only two and a half weeks left in 2011—and good riddance, might I add—so the likelihood of having another billion-dollar disaster occur in that time is low. However, the National Climatic Data Center and NOAA are still working to determine if the Halloween Nor’easter that dumped several inches of snow on New England and if the damage from Hurricane Lee caused enough damage to push it past $1 billion.

--Jerry Wofford

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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