The planet was besieged by 58 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2024, ranking second-highest behind only 2023, which had 73, said insurance broker Gallagher Re in its annual report issued January 17. The total damage wrought by weather disasters in 2024 was $402 billion, 20% higher than the 10-year inflation-adjusted average. (Gallagher Re’s historical database extends back to 1990.) A separate report issued January 18 by insurance broker Aon put the total damage wrought by weather disasters in 2024 at $348 billion, with 53 billion-dollar weather disasters.
Increasing numbers of billion-dollar disasters primarily driven by increases in wealth and population
Gallagher Re said that 2024 had the highest-ever number of insured billion-dollar weather disasters: 21, beating the record of 17 set in 2023 and 2020; over 40% of the insured damage was from severe thunderstorms. There has been a steep rise in the number of billion-dollar weather disasters in recent years, and most of this has been driven by increases in severe thunderstorm losses in the United States.
About 80-90% of the increase in damage resulted from factors other than climate change. This point was echoed by insurance broker Aon in a 2023 report, which found that over 80% of severe thunderstorm loss growth could be explained by factors unrelated to climate change. (Hail damage, in particular, is getting a boost from rapid growth in Texas and other Sun Belt states.) However, Gallagher Re warned that climate change amplification of weather events was leading to “weather whiplash,” with rapid shifts from one peril to another.
U.S. sees its second-highest number of billion-dollar weather disasters: 27
As discussed in our January 10 post, the inflation-adjusted tally of U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters in 2024 was 27, falling just short of the record of 28 set in 2023. The total cost of 2024’s billion-dollar weather disasters, $182.7 billion, was the fourth-highest on record in the NOAA database. The billion-dollar disasters of 2024 included 17 severe storm events, five hurricanes, one wildfire, one drought, one flood, and two winter storms. The average number of billion-dollar disasters for a full year for the most recent five years (2020–2024) is 23. Using different accounting methods, Gallagher Re tallied 33 U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters for 2024.
Cat clinging to a car for its life gets saved by rescue workers during Hurricane Helene flooding. pic.twitter.com/1oH8P4V7d5
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) October 13, 2024
Three top-20 costliest weather disasters in world history in 2024: Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton, and flooding in China
The year’s most destructive weather event of 2024 was Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region September 26 as a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds. As documented by Michael Lowry, at least 243 people lost their lives in Helene across seven states, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina killed an estimated 1,392 people in 2005. Flood damage from the hurricane was catastrophic in western North Carolina, and the $79 billion price tag makes it the seventh-most expensive weather disaster in world history, adjusted for inflation.
The second costliest weather disaster of 2024 was another U.S. hurricane, Category 3 Milton, which made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, and cost $34 billion. Seventeen of the top 20 most expensive weather disasters in world history are U.S. events, with two of these occurring in 2024.
Researchers at the Imperial College of London separately determined that climate change increased Helene’s wind speeds at landfall by about 13 mph or 11%, and Milton’s by almost 11 mph or 10%. Using a previously published damage function and data on the exposed value of global assets, the researchers determined that 44% of the economic damages caused by Helene and 45% of those caused by Milton could be attributed to climate change. They added that the analysis “likely underestimates the true cost of the hurricanes because it does not capture long-lasting economic impacts such as lost productivity and worsened health outcomes.”
China suffered $31 billion in damages from summer flooding during 2024. This was Earth’s third-costliest weather disaster of 2024 and is tied with the summer 2021 floods as China’s second-costliest weather disaster on record. Their costliest weather disaster occurred in 1998 when river flooding killed 3,556 and caused $57 billion in damage. This disaster ranks as the costliest weather-related disaster in world history to occur outside of the U.S.
The radar in #Haikou is centered in the eye of powerful #TyphoonYagi… and thankfully it’s still up & running (so far)!! 🤞https://t.co/pK3EMVUtlw pic.twitter.com/kcGhE6XgSx
— Brian McNoldy (@BMcNoldy) September 6, 2024
Fourth-most expensive typhoon on record: Yagi, $16.8 billion in damages
After peaking as a Category 5 super typhoon with 160 mph winds, Typhoon Yagi made a devastating landfall on China’s Hainan Island as a Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds on September 6, 2024, causing over $11 billion in damage in China. Yagi made a subsequent landfall on September 7 in Vietnam as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds, making it that nation’s strongest typhoon since modern records began in 1945. Yagi caused $3.3 billion in damage in Vietnam – the country’s costliest typhoon on record. Overall, Yagi’s $16.8 billion in damage made it the world’s fourth-costliest typhoon on record (using statistics from EM-DAT, inflation-adjusted to 2024 dollars). Here is their top-10 list of most expensive typhoons:
1) $25 billion, Doksuri, 2023 (China)
2) $22 billion, Mireille, 1991 (Japan)
3) $20 billion, Hagibis, 2019 (Japan)
4) $17 billion, Yagi, 2024 (China, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, India)
5) $15 billion, Jebi, 2018 (Japan)
5) $15 billion, Songda, 2004 (Japan)
7) $12 billion, Lekima, 2019 (China)
8) $11 billion, Faxai, 2019 (Japan)
9) $9 billion, Fitow, 2013 (China)
9) $9 billion, Flo, 1990 (Japan)
9) $9 billion, Bart, 1999 (Japan)
This list leaves out what was possibly the most destructive typhoon of all time, Typhoon Nina of 1975. Nina stalled out and dumped prodigious rains for two days in the Ru River drainage basin upstream of the Banqiao Dam, leading to the dam’s collapse and the loss of 171,000 lives, with an area 34 miles long and eight miles wide wiped out. The disaster was not disclosed by China until the mid-1990s. The list above also does not include the $12 billion flood disaster in southern Japan in July 2018, which was caused by the presence of a stationary seasonal frontal boundary enhanced by remnant moisture from Typhoon Prapiroon.
A record year for heat waves: three with at least 1,000 deaths
Earth’s hottest year on record brought three heat waves that killed at least 1,000 people in 2024. The more than 9,000 deaths that occurred during the summer heat wave in Europe ranks as the year’s deadliest weather disaster and is the fifth-deadliest heat wave in world history. In addition, 1,301 heat wave deaths occurred in Saudi Arabia June 14-19 during the Hajj, when temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius (122 °F) occurred. And the last group of more than 1,000 heat wave deaths occurred in the U.S.; most of these were in Maricopa County, Arizona (home of Phoenix), which reported 657 heat wave deaths. Aon lists another 2024 heat wave that occurred in Southeast Asia April 20-May 5, which killed 1,571 people; Gallagher Re lists only 111 deaths for that event.
Read: Warming world, deadly problem: Heat-related deaths are surging
Before 2024, there were only 18 heat waves in history documented by EM-DAT to have killed at least 1,000 people; 2024 would be the first year to have three entries on this list (assuming that the EM-DAT database, which has not yet updated its heat wave numbers for 2024, agrees with Gallagher Re’s numbers). Note, though, that heat wave deaths are often not fully quantified until several years after the event and are often drastically underreported.
For example, in 2022, Maricopa County, Arizona, which contains Phoenix, reported 425 heat-associated deaths. Yet EM-DAT lists only 136 heat wave deaths for the entire U.S. for that year, and NOAA lists just 383. Officials in Maricopa County and some other areas are now making more concerted efforts to account for all heat-related deaths; this will lead to more accurate totals going forward but will add to the challenge of apples-and-apples comparisons between recent and long-ago heat waves.
Earth’s fifth-deadliest wildfire on record: 137 killed in Chile
Earth’s hottest year on record intensified multiple destructive and deadly wildfires in 2024. The deadliest was a horrific wildfire, fueled by near-record drought, extreme heat, and El Niño, which swept through the coastal city of coastal city of Viña del Mar, Chile, on February 2-3. The death toll of 137 makes this Earth’s fifth-deadliest wildfire since 1900, and the $1 billion price tag makes it Chile’s second billion-dollar weather disaster on record. (The other was a 2015 flood that cost $1.9 billion, adjusted for inflation.)
The World Weather Attribution group could not identify a climate change influence on the 2024 Chile wildfires. But according to a 2024 study, six out of seven of Chile’s most destructive fire seasons on record occurred since 2014, and the study authors stated, “the concurrence of El Niño and climate-fueled droughts and heat waves boost the local fire risk and have decisively contributed to the intense fire activity recently seen in central Chile.”
🔴#ViñaDelMar| Recorrido aéreo de @AFPespanol evidencia la devastación en la zona por incendios forestales. pic.twitter.com/H2ymbUozK8
— Fernando Ulloa Galaz (@UlloaG_Fernando) February 4, 2024
An increase in “hot droughts” worldwide
Many parts of the world are experiencing a shift toward “hot droughts”: droughts associated with less precipitation than average combined with significantly above-average temperatures — a double whammy that greatly increases the risk of ecosystem impacts and destructive wildfires. This is the kind of drought that affected Chile during its catastrophic wildfires in both 2023 and 2024 and has increasingly been affecting California. A 2024 study published in the Journal of Arid Environments concluded, “Our findings support the idea that anthropogenic warming results in a changing drought climatology for arid and semiarid regions of southern California and that hot droughts will likely become the dominant drought type.”
Fortunately, global losses from drought were below average in 2024, according to Aon, which listed $18 billion in losses. This is well below the 2000-2023 average of $40 billion per year.
A concerning increase in deadly wildfires globally
Five of the top 10 deadliest wildfires globally since 1900 have occurred since 2018, according to statistics from EM-DAT. This worrisome trend results not only from climate change but also from an increase in the number of people moving into fire-vulnerable areas — the wildland-urban interface, often called the WUI. In addition, poor land management practices have contributed to extreme wildfire activity; for example, in Chile and Portugal, recent catastrophic fires burned through plantation forests densely packed with fire-vulnerable trees. In some regions, fire-prone invasive plants have been a problem, such as in the wildfire that consumed Lahaina, Hawai’i in 2023, killing 102 people. Finally, human-caused ignition sources have increased as more people and more infrastructure push into forested areas.
The flood situation in Nigeria is off the scale. Just Horrific 😭pic.twitter.com/rGi3QcI0j8
— Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) September 17, 2024
A new addition to the unprecedented number of very deadly African weather disasters since 2022
Torrential rains during July, August, and September 2024 unleashed catastrophic floods in West and Central Africa, affecting over 4 million people in 14 countries: Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo. According to the U.N. World Food Program, the floods exacerbated a regional hunger crisis that was already affecting 55 million people – four times more people than five years ago. EM-DAT lists 1,489 flood deaths for 2024 in those nations, primarily in Chad, Nigeria, and Niger. These floods affected the same area that experienced catastrophic flooding in 2022 that killed 876 people. However, this year there was also significant rain and flooding even further north, extending from the semiarid Sahel region into the Sahara Desert itself, as observed by NASA satellites. Some parts of Libya and Sudan received up to 5 times their normal annual rainfall.
According to an analysis by the World Weather Attribution group, human-caused climate change made the 2024 floods about twice as likely to occur and 10% more intense. For the 2022 floods, the group said human-caused climate change made the event about twice as likely to occur and 5% more intense.
Despite recent improved weather forecasting technology and increased disaster awareness and preparation efforts, the African continent has suffered an unprecedented number of deadly weather-related disasters over the past three years. The 2024 floods are the eighth weather-related disaster to kill at least 500 Africans since 2022, and an astonishing 27% of the continent’s 30 deadliest weather-related disasters since 1900 have occurred since 2022 (Fig. 6).
This ominous figure could well be a harbinger of the future, as higher vulnerability, a growing population, and more extreme weather events from climate change cause an increase in deadly disasters. For more detail, see our September 13, 2023, post on Storm Daniel, “The Libya floods: a climate and infrastructure catastrophe.”
The scale of the flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil is unfathomable!!!! pic.twitter.com/pmLpJpTz9C
— Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) May 8, 2024
Special weather whiplash of 2024 awards: Brazil and Spain
Brazil: Not only did Brazil suffer its costliest weather disaster on record in 2024 — the $14.5 billion in damage from the Rio Grande do Sul floods — the nation also suffered $6 billion in losses from drought and had massive fires that burned an area the size of Italy — the largest area on record — in the Amazon.
Spain: In late October, torrential rains hit eastern Spain, triggering catastrophic flooding that killed 231 people and did $12 billion in damage, primarily in Valencia. The flood ranks Spain’s costliest weather disaster on record and is Europe’s 10th-costliest weather disaster in history. The 231 deaths also made it the 10th-deadliest flood in European history (and third-deadliest in Spanish history). Spain also suffered $3.2 billion in drought losses in 2024 and was one of the four nations most affected by Europe’s summer heat wave, which killed over 9,000 people.
One other nation suffered its costliest inflation-adjusted weather disaster in history during 2024: the United Arab Emirates, with $7 billion in damage from the Persian Gulf flash floods of April 2024. In addition, the French territory of Mayotte had its most expensive disaster on record in 2024, from catastrophic category 4 Cyclone Chido, which caused insured losses of $675 million, and total losses that could rival the nation’s GDP of $3 billion, according to Aon.
For comparison, seven nations had their most expensive weather-related natural disaster in history in 2023. Note that these tallies will be considerably different using Aon or Gallagher Re disaster figures, which can differ from EM-DAT’s by a factor of two. Gallagher Re’s database is generally superior to EM-DAT’s but is not publicly available.
With everywhere flooded in Dubai, they still have constant electricity. 🙏🏽🙏🏽 https://t.co/RbFdPZUDL7
— Name cannot be blank (@hackSultan) April 18, 2024
Bob Henson contributed to this post.
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