As the 2010s come to a close, it's hard to believe the number of major weather disasters we've seen this decade in the U.S.
Droughts, floods, tornado outbreaks, hurricanes, winter storms and wildfires have all taken their toll on the nation this decade.
Through October 2019, NOAA's National Centers For Environmental Information compiled 115 weather events from 2010 through 2019 each responsible for at least $1 billion damage in the U.S.
From that list, we ranked the top 10 most unforgettable weather stories of the decade, ranked not simply by the magnitude of their impacts at the time, but also their effects lingering for months or years after.
Climate change influenced at least two of these events and is a top story no matter the list because of its implication for future weather disasters. But we will stick to individual weather events for the purposes of this piece.
10. The January 2014 Snowpocalypse
The only winter storm to make our list, a late January 2014 Southeast winter storm was crippling in every sense of the word.
Only 2 inches of snow fell in Atlanta, but that doesn't tell the story.
Snow initially melted on contact with warmer pavement. But as colder air poured into the Southeast, this slush refroze and was compacted into impassable stretches of ice by thousands of vehicles and produced gridlock on both side streets and freeways alike.
The gridlock made it impossible for salt trucks to pass through, and when the trucks ran out of salt, they were unable to navigate back to the storage areas. There were more than 1,500 accidents, 175 injuries and at least one related fatality on the roads, the Georgia State Patrol said.
Many drivers stranded on icy roads left their vehicles and made their way to local Home Depots, supermarkets and drug stores that opened their doors to give the commuters a floor to sleep on. More than 50 shelters opened across Georgia. More than 3,000 schoolchildren were stranded at area schools overnight.
Following the storm, the city of Atlanta re-evaluated its snow and ice plans.
The storm also crippled travel in central and northern Alabama, including the Birmingham metro area. According to the National Weather Service, Alabama state troopers responded to 731 vehicle accidents over four days from Jan. 28-31, 2014.
States of emergency were declared in six states from Louisiana to North Carolina from the storm.
9. Carolina Flood Trifecta
The latter half of the decade left some in the Carolinas with flood fatigue.
In October 2015, a stalled weather pattern tapped moisture from distant Hurricane Joaquin and produced up to 27 inches of rain in South Carolina. The flooding damaged homes and businesses and shut down a stretch of Interstate 95 for weeks.
One year later, Hurricane Matthew triggered flooding in eastern North Carolina similar to 1999's Hurricane Floyd, swamping over 100,000 structures.
Then, in September 2018, Hurricane Florence shattered state tropical rainfall records in the Carolinas. Its estimated damage toll of $24.5 billion was greater than Matthew and Floyd combined, according to NOAA.
If that wasn't enough, Hurricane Dorian's storm surge and high winds battered North Carolina's Outer Banks in September 2019. The storm left up to 200 homes uninhabitable on Ocracoke Island, displaced up to 500 residents and resulted in a ban of visitors to the island until late November.
8. Siege of Oklahoma City Metro Tornadoes (2013)
Oklahoma's tornado reputation is well known, but the 2010s were a particularly destructive time in the heart of the Sooner State. Two violent tornadoes within two weeks of each other stood out.
On May 20, 2013, an over one-mile wide EF5 tornado tore through parts of Newcastle, Moore and southern Oklahoma City. Twenty-four people died, including seven in the Plaza Towers Elementary School. Over 300 homes suffered EF4 or EF5 damage in what became central Oklahoma's costliest single tornado ($2 billion damage), according to the National Weather Service.
Just 11 days later, a 2.6-mile wide, multi-vortex tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma, killed eight people, including renowned storm chaser/researcher Tim Samaras, his son Paul, and his chase partner Carl Young.
The tornadic supercells then rolled into the Oklahoma City metro area during the Friday evening rush. It was chaos. Freeways, including Interstate 35, were jammed with traffic. Passengers at Will Rogers World Airport were evacuated to underground tunnels.
If that wasn't enough, training thunderstorms moving across the metro area triggered deadly flash flooding that evening. At least 23 high water rescues were conducted, but 13 people lost their lives in the flash flood.
7. The Endless Flood (2019)
What may end up being the nation's wettest year on record triggered flooding in the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys that lasted for months.
Record flooding unleashed from the March "Bomb Cyclone" destroyed a dam in Nebraska and flooded parts of western Iowa and southern South Dakota. Heavy spring and summer rain in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys was followed by a wet fall in the Northern Plains.
Photos of Spencer Dam, along the Nebraska-South Dakota border before and after the dam was destroyed by flooding in March 2019.
Flooding along stretches of the Mississippi River lasted into summer and smashed several longevity records. Stretches of the James River in South Dakota were still well above flood stage as of mid-December.
Several locations along the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska and Missouri finally dipped below flood stage after almost nine straight months in flood. Other areas near the Missouri River, however, remained in flood as of mid-December. This Missouri River flood lasted 2 to 3 months longer than another billion-dollar flood in 2011.
Cornfields were still waiting to be harvested in early December from the Dakotas to Michigan due to soaked soil and poor drying conditions in a difficult year for some Midwest farmers.
Total damage to levees, farmland and structures was still being tallied as of publication, but was likely well over $1 billion.
6. Michael: A Rare Category 5 U.S. Landfall (2018)
Hurricane Michael became only the fourth U.S. hurricane to landfall at Category 5 intensity in October 2018. It was the most intense Florida Panhandle landfall on record.
Michael's storm surge of up to 14 feet and destructive winds damaged 93% of the buildings in Mexico Beach, Florida, and over 45,000 structures in Bay County alone. Over a year later, Mexico Beach Mayor Al Cathey told weather.com the town still has no grocery store, bank or gas station open.
Michael's destructive winds extended well inland. The storm caused over $1 billion in damage in southeast Alabama and $4.7 billion in southwest and central Georgia. In Georgia, 99% of homes were damaged in Donaldsonville and 3,000 residential structures were damaged in Albany, according to the National Hurricane Center's final report.
Infrared satellite loop of Hurricane Michael's Category 5 landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, on Oct. 10, 2018.
5. The Terribly Tornadic Spring 2011
An estimated 349 tornadoes touched down in the April 25-28, 2011 Super Outbreak in the South and East, killing 321 and leaving $11.9 billion damage in its wake. It was the costliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history.
A staggering 207 of these tornadoes occurred on April 27 alone, including four EF5 and 11 EF4 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, northwest Georgia and Tennessee. Hackleburg, Phil Campbell, Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Smithville, Mississippi, were among the cities most heavily damaged.
Less than a month later, a mile-wide EF5 tornado tore a six-mile path through Joplin, Missouri, on May 22 and killed 161 people. It was the nation's single deadliest tornado since 1947. The Joplin tornado inflicted $3.1 billion in damage, adjusted for inflation. That made it the nation's single costliest tornado. Three million cubic yards of tornado debris, enough to fill more than 900 olympic-sized swimming pools, filled three landfills.
Keith Stammer, Director of Joplin’s Emergency Management Agency, told weather.com the city has still not rebuilt all the homes lost and that the city hasn't completely recovered.
And he said the psychological effect lingers. The city now tests its tornado sirens the second Wednesday of every month - but never on a cloudy day. He said they don’t want to frighten people.
4. Superstorm Sandy (2012)
Sandy's size and bizarre westward bend in its path led to the most destructive strike on the East Coast in decades in October 2012.
Record storm surge swept ashore at the Battery in New York City, Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and Bridgeport, Connecticut. High winds from Sandy's mammoth size downed trees from western North Carolina to Ohio to New England. Power outages peaked at 8.6 million customers and included places as far away as Detroit and Atlanta.
Sandy's direct impacts killed 72 people in the Northeast, the most for any tropical cyclone related-storm outside of the South since Hurricane Agnes in 1972, according to the National Hurricane Center. Another 87 were killed in the aftermath of Sandy during effects like exposure due to power outages in cold weather after the storm.
Sandy's total inflation-adjusted damage estimate was $73.5 billion, the fourth costliest tropical cyclone on record in the U.S.
While some homes were rebuilt along the heavily-damaged Jersey Shore, vacant lots remained years after Sandy's strike.
New York gave more than $1 billion to nearly 11,000 homeowners to rebuild their homes after Sandy, including funding to elevate more than 3,000 out of the flood zone. The state also bought and returned hundreds of storm-ravaged homes to nature.
New York City's subway system was still under repair seven years after Sandy flooded some stations.
3. Harvey and Houston's Other Floods (2017)
Hurricane Harvey in 2017 was the most widespread and extreme rainfall event from any tropical depression, storm or hurricane in U.S. history.
After it made a Category 4 landfall along the Texas coast north of Corpus Christi, Harvey's agonizingly slow crawl produced up to 60 inches of rain in a pair of locations near Beaumont and Port Arthur. Virtually the entire Houston metro area picked up at least 20 inches of rain, with some totals exceeding 40 inches.
Over 200,000 homes and businesses were flooded and an estimated one million vehicles were damaged beyond repair, according to Rebuild Texas. At least 68 people died as a direct result of Harvey and 39,000 people were forced from their homes.
With an estimated $130 billion damage, Harvey was the second costliest U.S. tropical cyclone on record behind Katrina.
As a result of the catastrophic devastation, the state enacted a host of programs intended to create more robust response, recovery, and mitigation efforts.
Harvey was just one of a number of major southeast Texas and Louisiana floods in the decade, punctuated by 2019's Tropical Storm Imelda.
A study by the World Weather Attribution team found climate change made record rainfall over the upper Texas coast during Harvey three times more likely and 15% more intense.
2. California Firestorms Bring About a New Normal
After a multi-year drought categorized by one study as the worst in almost 450 years in some parts of California, a rash of massive, destructive wildfires in 2017 and 2018 left one California town staggering and the rest of the state pondering a new normal.
From September 2015 through November 2018, seven of the 10 most destructive wildfires in state history burned a combined 1 million acres and about 32,000 structures, according to Cal Fire.
The city of Paradise, California, was ground zero.
November 2018's Camp Fire was both the state's deadliest (at least 85 killed) and most destructive wildfire (18,804 structures damaged), burning virtually every building in Paradise. As of April 2019, only about 10 percent of the city's residents were still living there.
The July 2018 Carr Fire not only charred over 229,000 acres in Northern California, but also spawned a bizarre, destructive fire whirl in Redding, which generated winds estimated to be equal to an EF3 tornado and damaged some homes that weren't otherwise burned.
October 2017 wildfires in Napa and Sonoma Counties killed 25 and burned almost 7,000 structures, leaving parts of the city of Santa Rosa in ruins.
In response, Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison began shutting off power to areas during high wind events to minimize the threat of sparking wildfires from downed, live transmission lines. One such PG&E outage affected more than 738,000 customers in 30 counties from Oct. 9 - 12, 2019.
“We are dealing with a new reality here, and power shut-offs are one tool that we have,” PG&E Corp. President Bill Johnson said at a news conference in October 2019.
Since the fires, there have been calls for more stringent building codes and measures to prevent development in high fire-risk areas.
1. Maria Kills Thousands, Cripples Puerto Rico (2017)
No weather event had such severe, long-lasting impacts in the decade than Hurricane Maria.
Maria was the strongest hurricane to landfall in Puerto Rico since 1928 when it roared into the U.S. territory on Sept. 20, 2017, as a high-end Category 4 hurricane.
The exact death toll remains unknown two years after Hurricane Maria.
Puerto Rico cites a George Washington University study estimating 2,975 people died in the disaster, while Harvard researchers estimate 4,645 people perished.
The storm damaged or destroyed more than 300,000 homes. Of those, FEMA says nearly 115,000 have been repaired.
Eighty percent of Puerto Rico's power poles and all transmission lines were downed by Maria, knocking out power to much of the island for months, according to the National Hurricane Center's report.
This animation is a satellite view of Puerto Rico before and after Maria devastated its power grid in 2017. The before image was captured on July 24, and the after image was taken on Sept. 25, less than a week after the hurricane made landfall on Sept. 20.
Flooding triggered hundreds of landslides on the mountainous island, wiping out countless trees, roads, bridges and some homes. Even homes that weren't swept down hillsides were isolated by washed-out or tree-blocked roads.
Puerto Rico’s bridges, ports, roads and power grid are reportedly still in poor condition. The Society of Civil Engineers recently gave the island a D- minus on an infrastructure report card. It says up to $23 billion is needed over 10 years for updates and repairs.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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