Decreased natural hazard losses seen in US, but record events still seen
Decreased damage and loss totals from natural hazard events were seen overall for the US in 2015, according to a new report from CoreLogic, provider of financial, property and consumer information.
Among individual hazard categories however, there were still record-setting events that caused significant damage, said the firm.
The report, Natural Hazard Risk Summary and Analysis, reviews annual hazard activity in the US including events for wildfire, flooding, hurricanes, wind, hail, tornadoes, earthquakes and sinkholes.
It found that wildfire activity for 2015 was the worst in recorded history with over 3.5 million more acres burned in 2015 than the yearly average of 6,579,250 from the previous 15 years (2000-2014).
The three most destructive wildfires of 2015 were the Valley Fire in northern California, which burned 76,000 acres and destroyed 1,307 homes with $925 million in insured losses; the Butte Fire in northern California which burned 70,000 acres and destroyed 475 homes with $225 million in insured losses; and the Okanogan Complex Fire in north central Washington, which burned 133,000 acres and destroyed 73 homes with $8 million in insured losses .
At $2.86 billion, total flood loss in 2015 was equivalent to that of 2014, but still well below the 30-year average of $7.96 billion.
Based on the snapshot statistics from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Storm Event Database, property losses from flash flood events in the first nine months of 2015 were more than 15 percent higher than the losses from riverine floods.
For flash flood loss totals, Texas ranked first with property losses totaling more than $309 million. This was followed by New York with almost $14 million in property losses and Ohio with more than $7 million.
Hurricane activity in the Atlantic was below normal for 2015 with only 11 named storms, seven of which never grew stronger than a tropical storm. Of the four storms that were categorized as hurricanes, two were Category 1 and the other two grew into Major hurricanes: Danny, a Category 3, and Joaquin, a Category 4.
Even though no hurricanes made landfall in 2015 and no substantial wind or storm-surge damage occurred, storm-related precipitation from Tropical Storm Ana, Tropical Storm Bill and Hurricane Joaquin resulted in record-setting inland flooding.
Severe wind activity was relatively low in 2015 with only 0.2 percent of the continental US affected by wind speeds of 80 mph or greater.
2015 had the lowest number of annual recorded wind speeds of 65 mph or greater since 2006 when wind data collection began.
Tornado activity was slightly above average in 2015 with 1,252 recorded tornadoes. This total includes the 948 tornadoes that have been verified through September 2015, as well as an additional 238 tornadoes preliminarily logged from October-December.
With a total of 1,196 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater, 2015 was characterized by a slightly higher-than-average number of earthquakes; however, none produced significant damage or losses.
Oklahoma experienced four times more earthquakes than both California and Oregon, two states that traditionally have the greatest seismic hazard activity in the U.S. Although earthquakes in Oklahoma occur more frequently, the majority are of smaller magnitude (M<4.0) than those in California.
