CoreLogic® analyzes and evaluates the number and severity of natural hazard events that occurred across the U.S. annually in its Natural Hazard Risk Summary and Analysis in order to help inform and protect homeowners and businesses from financial catastrophe. The report reviews specific annual hazard events for flooding, earthquake, wildfire, wind, hail, tornado, hurricanes and winter storms, with spotlights on several international events including Asia typhoon. The CoreLogic data shows relatively average or below-average activity for most U.S. natural hazards in 2016 with the exception of flood and wind, both of which saw above-average activity, due in large part to Hurricane Matthew.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Table of Events, there were 15 individual weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion in the U.S. in 2016.
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Flood
• At $17 billion, total flood loss in 2016 was six times greater than the overall flood damage experienced in 2015.
• Five flood-related events in 2016 exceeded $1 billion in losses, including Hurricane Matthew in October with losses estimated at $3 billion.
Atlantic Hurricane
• Hurricane activity in the Atlantic was slightly higher than average in 2016 with 15 named storms, including eight tropical storms and seven hurricanes. Three of these were major hurricanes identified as Category 3 or greater.
• Hurricane Matthew caused an estimated $4-6 billion worth of damage in insured losses, $3.5-5 billion caused by wind and $500,000-1 million caused by storm surge.
Wind
• Due in large part to the strong winds brought by Hurricane Matthew, the land area impacted by severe winds (>80 mph) was three times greater than in 2015.
Wildfire
• The number of wildfires (62,864) in 2016, as well as the total number of acres burned (5,415,121 acres), was below the annual average.
• The Gatlinburg fires in Tennessee burned an estimated 16,000 acres, making it the most destructive in terms of acres burned for the year.
Hail
• Hail activity for 2016 was near average with 243,647 square miles, or 7.8 percent, of the continental U.S. impacted by severe hail, defined as 1” or greater.
• Texas experienced the worst of this natural hazard, with hail and wind events expected to exceed $5.5 billion in estimated losses once the 2016 figures are tallied, the highest for the state since 2008.
Tornado
• The number of tornadoes in 2016 was near average with 1,059 recorded tornadoes.
• With 102 confirmed tornadoes, the month of February experienced the most tornado activity in 2016, the second most-active February in history after 2008 when 146 tornadoes occurred.
Earthquake
• As of December 1, there were 943 identified earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater across the country with more than 60 percent occurring in Oklahoma.
Winter Storms
• Following one of the harshest winters (2014-2015) on record, December 2015 through February 2016 was the warmest winter in 121 years, despite experiencing nine winter storms.
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Global insured disaster losses hit four-year high
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