Muller, Joanne, Mooney, Kaylee, Bowen, Steven G., Klotzbach, Philip J., Martin, Tynisha, Philp, Tom J., Bhatt, Dhruvkumar, Dixon, Richard S. and Girimurugan, Senthil B. (2025) Normalized hurricane damage in the United States: 1900-2022. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. E51 – E67. ISSN 0003-0007
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Since 1900, landfalling hurricanes have been the costliest of all weather-related disasters to afflict the continental United States. To provide a present-day (2022) re-evaluation of this risk, this study employs an improved normalization approach to better understand potential economic event losses in the context of contemporary societal conditions. The updated methodology identifies impacted coastal counties using the newly available radius of maximum winds at landfall. Hurricane Katrina is the most expensive hurricane since 1900, with a likely 2022 normalized cost of US$234 billion. Combined losses from the 50 most expensive hurricane events are ~US$2.9 trillion in normalized economic losses. The study also explores some “analogue storms” where comparisons can be made between two historic storms with similar landfall locations. For example, Category 5 Andrew (1992) has lower 2022 normalized losses than Category 4 Great Miami (1926), at US$125 billion vs US$178, most likely due to the significantly different radius of maximum wind size (10 vs 20 nm). As with previous studies, we conclude that increases in inflation, coastal population, regional wealth, and higher replacement costs remain the primary drivers of observed increases in hurricane-related damage. These upsurges are especially impactful for some coastal regions along the US Gulf and Southeast Coasts that have seen exceptionally high rates of population/housing growth in comparison to country-wide growth. Exposure growth trends are likely to continue in the future and, independent of any influence of climate change on tropical cyclone behavior, are expected to result in greater hurricane-related damage costs than have been previously observed.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | © 2025 American Meteorological Society |
| Divisions: | Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jan 2025 11:09 |
| Last Modified: | 25 Jan 2025 18:04 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127051 |
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