Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Smashes US Record

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(12-07) 08:33 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

America's wild weather year has hit yet another new high: a devastating dozen billion-dollar catastrophes.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday that it has recalculated the number of weather disasters passing the billion dollar mark, with two new ones, pushing 2011's total to 12. The two costly additions are the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona wildfires and the mid June tornadoes and severe weather.

NOAA uses the $1 billion in damages amount as a benchmark for the worst of weather mega-disasters. This year's total of a dozen billion-dollar weather disasters matches the number of billion-dollar catastrophes for the entire decade of the 1980s, even when the older damage figures are adjusted for inflation.

Extreme weather in America this year has killed more than 1,000 people, according to National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes. The dozen billion dollar disasters alone add up to $52 billion in damages. Hayes, who has been a meteorologist since 1970, said he has never seen a year for extreme weather like this, calling it "the deadly, destructive and relentless 2011."

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