As the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season comes to a close, AccuWeather has estimated that the five hurricanes and one unnamed subtropical storm that made landfall in the USA caused an estimated US$500bn in total damage and economic loss.
The National Hurricane Center reported 18 named storms, 11 hurricanes and five major hurricanes.
“This has been a tremendously expensive and devastating hurricane season,” said AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jon Porter. “Coastal communities were devastated by wind and storm surge damage. Catastrophic flooding ripped apart mountain towns hundreds of miles away from the shore. Tornadoes damaged homes and businesses more than 1,000 miles away from where Hurricane Beryl made landfall. The 2024 hurricane season will be remembered for shattering records and causing approximately US$500bn in total damage and economic loss. For perspective, this would equate to nearly 2% of the nation’s gross domestic product. As we first forecast in late February, ahead of all other known sources, this turned out to be an explosive, supercharged hurricane season that was fueled by extremely warm water temperatures linked to climate change.”
More than 230 deaths have been directly linked to tropical storm and hurricane impacts in the US this year. AccuWeather supported the findings of recent research that each hurricane can contribute to 7,000-11,000 excess deaths within 15 years of the storm.
“The damage and suffering from hurricanes and extreme weather [are] often much greater than what is initially reported and what insurance typically covers,” said AccuWeather founder and executive chairman Dr Joel N Myers. “The long-term effects of weather disasters are harmful to longevity. People experience trauma, they lose their possessions, they end up with less money to rebuild, pay for health expenses and eventually retire.”
AccuWeather’s exclusive estimates for the total damage and economic loss from weather disasters account for long-term and residual impacts that many other damage estimates do not consider, including long-term medical costs, uninsured losses, job and wage losses, crop losses, infrastructure damage, business and supply chain disruptions, travel delays, airport closures, evacuation and relocation costs, long-term tourism impacts, as well as emergency management and government expenses for cleanup and recovery efforts.
“As far back as 2018, we have said that many hurricane damage estimates are far too low. They often only focus on insurance and what’s covered; that could be as little as 5 or 10% of the total economic loss, not to mention the impact of job losses and long-term healthcare costs,” Myers explained. “Businesses fail, jobs are lost, people move away, houses are destroyed, and all of that is not covered by insurance. That money is gone forever, and it has a long-term effect on communities.”
The exploding cost of hurricane impacts in the USA
According to the report, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the costliest on record in modern history. The company’s estimate of the total damage and economic loss in the US from Hurricane Beryl is US$28-32bn, US$225-250bn for Hurricane Helene, US$160-180bn for Hurricane Milton, US$28bn for Hurricane Debby and US$9bn for Hurricane Francine.
The damage and economic loss estimates from AccuWeather follow a global trend. A report issued by the International Chamber of Commerce suggested that extreme weather and impacts linked to climate change have cost the global economy more than US$2tn in the last decade.
Record-shattering hurricane season
AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva says the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season defied climatology and obliterated records with storms such as Beryl, which was the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin.
“The combination of extremely warm water temperatures, a shift toward a La Niña pattern and favorable conditions for development created the perfect storm for what AccuWeather experts called ‘a supercharged hurricane season’,” DaSilva said. “This was an exceptionally powerful and destructive year for hurricanes in America, despite an unusual and historic lull during the climatological peak of the season.”
AccuWeather senior meteorologist and climate expert Brett Anderson says our warming atmosphere and oceans contributed to the growing trend of early-season storms, late-season storms and rapidly intensifying hurricanes.
“Water temperatures across much of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean reached record territory this summer. We’ve never seen such warm water reach depths of hundreds of feet below the surface,” Anderson said. “That extra energy acts like rocket fuel for storms. The trend of rapidly intensifying storms is being boosted by our warming oceans and climate. We’re also seeing the opportunity for tropical storm and hurricane development extending before and after the official hurricane season as our oceans continue warming.”
Hurricane Beryl was the first storm of the season that shattered records when it became the first major hurricane to form east of the Lesser Antilles in the month of June. It later developed into the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin on July 16. Beryl also went down in the history books as the fastest-moving Category 5 hurricane, and was later blamed for dozens of destructive tornadoes along a nearly 1,200-mile-long path from Texas to upstate New York.
Hurricane Helene will be remembered as the second-deadliest tropical storm to hit the contiguous USA in 50 years, with more than 200 deaths reported and counting. Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,200 people in 2005. Helene also shattered storm surge records in the Big Bend region of Florida. The tidal gauge at Cedar Key reached 9.3ft, which surpassed the record of 6.9ft set during Hurricane Idalia in 2023. Helene unleashed an estimated 42 trillion gallons of rainfall in the US, which is equivalent to the flow of Niagara Falls for 1.75 years.
Hurricane Milton was the third storm to make landfall in Florida in 2024, tying the all-time record for landfalling storms in the state. Milton’s tropical rainbands produced “an extremely unusual and intense tornado outbreak across Florida”, according to AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jon Porter. At least 45 tornadoes were confirmed after Milton. Hurricane Ivan in 2004 holds the record with 120 confirmed tornadoes linked to a single hurricane.
In related news, a joint team from the Nearshore Extreme Events Reconnaissance (NEER) Association and the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association, including researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), were mobilized to investigate the real-time impacts of storm surges and waves from Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Click here to read the full story
