WASHINGTON — America smashed the record for billion-dollar weather disasters this year with a deadly dozenand counting.
With an onslaught of twisters, floods, snow, drought, heat and wildfire, the U.S. in 2011 has seen more weather catastrophes that caused at least $1 billion each in damage than it did in all of the 1980s, even after the dollar figures from back then are adjusted for inflation.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration added two disasters to the list Wednesday, bringing the total to 12. The two are the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona wildfires and the mid-June tornadoes and severe weather.
The old record for $1 billion disasters was nine, in 2008. And this year’s total may not stop at 12. Officials are still adding up the damage from Tropical Storm Lee and the pre-Halloween Northeast snowstorm, and so far each is at $750 million.
Scientists blame a combination of global warming and freak chance. They say that even with the long-predicted increase in weather extremes triggered by climate change, 2011 in the U.S. was wilder than they had predicted. The Associated Press
