Highlights
Thunderstorm losses since 1980 have become five times more severe, on average. There were $20 billion in such losses by midyear in 2011, doubling the average of the past three years.
“The nation is increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather,” National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes says. The year has been marked by floods, drought and tornadoes, such as the May twister that killed 160 people in Joplin, Mo. Meanwhile, a Texas heat wave has cost $5.2 billion in crop and livestock losses so far “It doesn’t take a wizard to predict that 2011 will go down in history,” Hayes says.
The source article In 2011, record-tying nine $1B weather disasters was published August 17, 2011 by USA Today .
