Extreme Weather Costs

The sunshine state might be more appropriately dubbed the storm state, according to the results of a new report. The 2001 edition of the Extreme Weather Sourcebook, unveiled this week at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, once again featured Florida as the number one state in terms of damage-related costs incurred by hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. Indeed, Florida's 1999 weather damage totaled 1.6 billion dollars--a significant chunk of the U.S. total, which amounted to around 11.4 billion dollars.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) beefed up this most recent version of the Extreme Weather Sourcebook with additional historical data, and information on hail, wind storms, thunderstorms and winter storms. They also added a section on lightning--one of the deadliest extreme weather events. Overall, "There's really no place that's 'safe'," notes NCAR team leader Roger Pielke, "every place has some amount of damage."