The US has been dealt a series of extreme weather events this year: there have been 23 separate billion-dollar disasters in 2023 so far. It's a new record in itself as the largest number of costly disasters since records began in 1980. The nation has endured deadly wildfires, tropical cyclones and extreme snowfall, all impacted and worsened by climate change. Read on for America's recent record-breaking weather events.
California got off to a very wet start in 2023 and by 11 January, 90% of the state was already under flood watch. Storms lingered over the Pacific for the entire month and meteorologists described the prolonged bout of precipitation as an ‘atmospheric river’. Risk analysts estimated the loss to the economy as a result was $5-$7 billion (£4.2-£5.9bn).
The state was battered by wind and rain, resulting in record rainfall, catastrophic property damage and 22 fatalities. Extreme rainfall like this is caused by climate change, because with every 1°C/1.8°F increase, the air holds 7% more moisture, making storms wetter and more intense.
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A blast of bitterly cold air targeted the northeast in February, particularly in the New England area. A new wind chill record of -77°C (-106°F) was taken on 4 February at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, making it the coldest wind chill ever recorded anywhere in the US. The previous record was -74°C (-101°F).
Massachusetts also suffered drastically cold temperatures, with Boston (pictured) recording -23°C (-9°F) on 4 February, shattering a record that had stood for over a century and forcing Boston officials to temporarily close the public school system. Worcester also measured record-low temperatures, and in Southwick high winds brought down a tree which crushed a car and caused one fatality.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) included this northeast cold wave in its 2023 report of costliest disasters, with damages racking up to $1.8 billion (£1.4bn) across the region. There could be a connection between extreme cold weather and climate change, but one thing’s for sure: extreme weather events like these are only set to continue as a result of our warming planet.
In February, the National Weather Service issued its first blizzard warning to Los Angeles in 34 years. Up in the mountains north and east of LA, snowfall was measured at an incredible eight feet (2.4m) with powerful winds of 60-75 miles per hour (96-120km/h), while coastal areas endured extreme flooding.
There was near-zero visibility, which caused road closures, plus snow dusting on the famous Hollywood sign. Bryan Jackson, a forecaster at Maryland’s Weather Prediction Center, explained that this weather event was caused by a huge low-pressure system driven from the Arctic. Unusual conditions like these are often linked to climate change.
Mississippi suffered what the National Weather Service described as the “deadliest tornado in over a decade” on 24 March, where a volatile wedge-shaped tornado left 25 people dead. The tornado stayed on the ground for 80 minutes and covered a distance of around 170 miles (274km).
The little town of Rolling Fork (pictured) was the worst affected, with homes reduced to rubble, trees pulled apart and cars flung into the air. Research into the exact impact of global warming on tornadoes is ongoing, but Victor Gensini, an extreme weather expert at Northern Illinois University, believes they're unavoidably connected to climate change.
Travelling 14.3 miles (23km) in the space of 20 minutes, a tornado that ripped through Delaware in April was the state’s first fatal twister in 40 years. The National Weather Service named it the state’s widest tornado on record and one of Delaware’s two strongest on record, at almost half a mile (0.8km) wide, with estimated peak winds of 140 miles per hour (225km/h).
The deadly tornado was given an EF-3 rating (a scale used for measuring tornado intensity, with 1 being weak and 5 being violent), which marked Delaware's first such rating since 1961. While there’s no clear-cut conclusion that climate change is to blame, it’s been suggested that it impacts the conditions in which tornadoes form and the areas they target. Pictured here is work taking place on a storm damage reduction project on one of Delaware's beaches.
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Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Airport received almost 26 inches (66cm) of rain in less than a 24-hour period on 13 April, smashing the previous single-day record of 14.6 inches (37cm) set on 25 April 1979. The airport was forced to halt operations for two days, with the National Weather Service calling the extreme downpour a 1,000-year event.
The rest of Fort Lauderdale was affected too, with daily rainfall exceeding 10 inches (25.4cm) in areas including Broward County and Miami-Dade County. Jason Furtado, a meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma, explained that these heavy rainfall events "serve as significant wake-up calls...about the severe risks that climate change poses".
The National Centers for Environmental Information reported that the Alta Ski Area in Utah saw its highest level of snowfall ever recorded. On 25 April, over 900 inches (2,286cm) of snowfall descended on the popular ski resort, while other spots across the state also experienced record-high snowfall. As a result, avalanche warnings were issued, with one sweeping across a ski slope; thankfully, nobody was injured.
Although some might think heavy snowfall is counterintuitive to global warming, in reality it's one of the effects of climate change. As our warming planet evaporates more water into the atmosphere, this added moisture means more precipitation – whether that's rain or, in this case, snowfall.
In June, Texas and much of the US southwest endured a stifling ‘heat dome’, bringing three weeks of record-breaking temperatures to the region. The mercury hit a whopping 51°C (123°F) on multiple days in Corpus Christi, with over 40 million people across the region placed under a heat alert.
According to Andrew Pershing, director of climate science at non-profit Climate Central, human-caused climate change “made these conditions more than five times more likely”. To cope with this unprecedented heat index (which combines temperature and humidity), Texas’ power utility even urged users to cut back on air conditioning in order to help struggling power grids.
In July, Phoenix lived up to its nickname as Valley of the Sun following 31 consecutive days of temperatures exceeding 43°C (109°F). The Arizona state capital surpassed a previous 18-day record from 1974, with thousands of people needing urgent treatment for second-degree contact burns and 10 people requiring hospitalisation.
Locals described the relentlessly high temperatures as “hell on Earth”, while Phoenix's heat response programme manager called it “Arizona’s natural disaster”. As well as human-caused climate change, El Nino also had a big part to play in the extreme heat. This natural phenomenon is a powerful climate pattern which is linked to higher temperatures, in which warm water rises to the surface in the Pacific Ocean and is pushed back towards the west coast of the Americas.
Catastrophic flash flooding in Vermont was described as a “once in 1,000 years” event in July, and the state was subsequently placed under a state of emergency. The Federal Emergency Management Agency determined that over 2,900 homes had some type of damage, with at least 14 destroyed, as Vermont endured rainfall ranging from five to nine inches (12-22cm) in a single day.
As a result, the floods battered properties, roads and bridges, with stranded residents facing a housing shortage. Our warming atmosphere, caused by climate change, makes this type of extreme rainfall more likely, and it was also likely influenced by El Nino as well.
The severe flooding spread into neighbouring New York, with a number of new records set across the state. Westchester County saw 5.96 inches (15cm) in 24 hours – including a one-hour record of 2.17 inches (5.5cm) – while Dutchess County measured 5.39 inches (13.6cm) in 24 hours. Albany meteorologist Nick Bassil explained that while they had anticipated heavy rain in some areas, it had not been expected in the southern Hudson Valley.
As well as recording its warmest January-April period ever, North Carolina also suffered its strongest July tornado, with wind gusts of up to 150 miles per hour (241km/h). The EF-3 tornado wreaked havoc on Rocky Mount, where multiple sections of a Pfizer facility (pictured) collapsed, with 50,000 pallets of medicine reportedly damaged.
The nearby town of Dortches was also heavily impacted, with roads blocked from debris and damaged properties. According to Radar Data, the tornado may have remained on the ground for about 30 minutes and covered 20 miles (32km), lofting debris 15,000-20,000 feet (24,000-32,000m) into the air.
On 8 August, a devastating wildfire ripped across the Hawaiian island of Maui, described by Hawaiian governor Josh Green as the state’s “largest natural disaster” of all time. The extreme weather event destroyed or damaged 2,000 homes, caused power lines to come crashing down and devastated local wildlife. The death toll currently stands at 97, with many residents still reported missing.
The oceanside town of Lahaina, once home to 12,000 people, now lies in ruins; pictured here is US President Joe Biden visiting the aftermath of the devastating scene. Increasing temperatures, caused by climate change, have caused Hawaii to become more fire-prone, which is worsened by the amount of dry, highly-flammable vegetation across the state.
Following a major snowstorm in February (pictured), a damaging hailstorm, nicknamed the Happy Hour Hailstorm, wreaked havoc across Minnesota on 11 August. Intense thunderstorms and baseball-sized hailstones swept across the state, with a 76 mile-per-hour (122km/h) wind gust recorded at Mora Municipal Airport. It's been estimated that there was $1.1 billion (£8.8m) worth of damage.
Storms reached heights of over 50,000 feet (15,240m) and it appears that this particular weather event was even larger in scale than the infamous hailstorm of 19 May 2022. Our warming climate is making the state wetter and causing it to experience bigger storms like these on a more regular basis.
On 20 August, a magnitude-5.1 earthquake hit southern California while, at the same time, the area was experiencing high winds and torrential rain from the tail end of Hurricane Hilary. It caused a double-whammy of records: the first time a tropical storm had made landfall in southern California since 1939 and the first magnitude-5.1 earthquake in the area since 1941.
Millions of southern Californians received urgent back-to-back emergency alerts on their phones, a state of emergency was declared and the desert city of Palm Springs (pictured) recorded its heaviest hour of rain ever. Human-caused climate change makes the warmer atmosphere hold extra moisture, leading to more intense storms like these.
In late August, Hurricane Idalia hit Florida’s Gulf Coast with wind gusts reaching up to 125 miles per hour (201kmp/h). Then, it turned on southeastern Georgia, with floodwater leaving residents trapped in their homes. The Category 3 hurricane was the first major hurricane to pass through the bay bordering the Big Bend region (where the panhandle meets the peninsula) in 125 years. There were also multiple record-high water levels, such as at Clearwater Beach, where water levels reached 4.05 feet (1.23m). This surpassed the previous record of 4.02 feet (1.22m) from 1993's Storm of the Century.
The hurricane's extremity led the US Department of Health and Human Services to declare a public state of emergency for Georgia on 13 September. Climate change helps fuel hurricanes like these, although scientists are still trying to figure out its exact influence on Idalia’s strength and behaviour.
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