2014 a quiet year for weather disasters in the U.S.
The U.S. lucked out again this year, as large-scale weather catastrophes — including devastating and deadly hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires — were few and far between.
Not since Superstorm Sandy devastated the Northeast in 2012 has a single natural disaster cost the U.S. tens of billions in damage, according to a report released today by CoreLogic. Sandy cost the U.S. about $70 billion.
"This is two straight years without big disasters," said Tom Jeffery, a senior hazard scientist at CoreLogic, a private research and consulting company based in Santa Ana, Calif., that provides information and services to businesses and government.
Hurricanes, large tornado outbreaks and wildfires tend to be the biggest and costliest weather disasters in the U.S. each year, Jeffery said.
Despite the overall quiet pattern, major local flooding occurred in California, Arizona, New York and Michigan this year. Floods in metro Detroit, for example, caused more than $1 billion in damage.
The worst tornado outbreak of the year occurred on April 27-28, when 31 people died in the South and hundreds of homes were destroyed. Overall, 2014 is on track to have the fewest number of tornadoes recorded in the past decade.
Meanwhile, the earthquake that rattled the Napa Valley in California in August "could have been much worse," Jeffery said. The epicenter hit in a lightly populated area, and property loss was relatively minor, totaling less than $1 billion.
In terms of wildfires, 2014 has had the lowest amount of acreage lost to the blazes in the past 10 years.
Globally, Asia took the brunt of the natural disaster damage this year, due primarily to a series of powerful typhoons that blasted the Philippines, Japan, China and Taiwan, CoreLogic reported.
Although the temporary respite in U.S. disasters may continue for a while, it is unlikely to extend much farther into the future, the CoreLogic report stated. "A more likely scenario would be a return to higher numbers and more damaging events."