How damaging will the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season be?

[AlphaToOmega]

The climatological peak of hurricane season has started. With storms starting to become more damaging, it is worth asking how damaging this hurricane season will be. All figures are in 2021 USD.

1. $1.225G-$1.25G
2. $1.25G-$2.5G
3. $2.5G-$5G
4. $5G-$10G
5. $10G-$20G
6. $20G-$40G
7. $40G-$80G
8. $80G-$160G
9. $160G-$320G
10. $320G+

Open until 2021-11-30 (end of the official hurricane season)

[captainbarbossa19]

Well if what models are showing about a potential stalling tropical cyclone near Texas actually occurs, I am thinking damage will be quite high since it is not even September yet.

[captainbarbossa19]

Well if what models are showing about a potential stalling tropical cyclone near Texas actually occurs, I am thinking damage will be quite high since it is not even September yet.

Also, the damage from Henri could be high in New England.

[Shell Mound]

Well if what models are showing about a potential stalling tropical cyclone near Texas actually occurs, I am thinking damage will be quite high since it is not even September yet.

Also, the damage from Henri could be high in New England.

Actually, impacts ended up being far less than expected.

[cheezyWXguy]

Well if what models are showing about a potential stalling tropical cyclone near Texas actually occurs, I am thinking damage will be quite high since it is not even September yet.

Also, the damage from Henri could be high in New England.

Actually, impacts ended up being far less than expected.

With such high population density, it doesn’t take an overly intense storm to rack up a big damage toll, and rainfall has been the main driver. My bet is that the final figure ends up in the $3-5 billion range.

[AlphaToOmega]

Also, the damage from Henri could be high in New England.

Actually, impacts ended up being far less than expected.

With such high population density, it doesn’t take an overly intense storm to rack up a big damage toll, and rainfall has been the main driver. My bet is that the final figure ends up in the $3-5 billion range.

$3G-5G in damage has been quite low for recent hurricane seasons. The last Atlantic hurricane season with a total damage amount <$10G was 2015.

[ElectricStorm]

Actually, impacts ended up being far less than expected.

With such high population density, it doesn’t take an overly intense storm to rack up a big damage toll, and rainfall has been the main driver. My bet is that the final figure ends up in the $3-5 billion range.

$3G-5G in damage has been quite low for recent hurricane seasons. The last Atlantic hurricane season with a total damage amount <$10G was 2015.

I think he meant for Henri, not the whole season

[cheezyWXguy]

Actually, impacts ended up being far less than expected.

With such high population density, it doesn’t take an overly intense storm to rack up a big damage toll, and rainfall has been the main driver. My bet is that the final figure ends up in the $3-5 billion range.

$3G-5G in damage has been quite low for recent hurricane seasons. The last Atlantic hurricane season with a total damage amount <$10G was 2015.

I was just talking about Henri

[Teban54]

I think this is a question that nobody can reliably predict ahead of time. A tropical cyclone's damage is determined by way more than its intensity and general steering pattern: miniscule factors such as the exact location of landfall, track and speed after moving inland, shape of the coastline (for storm surge), how saturated the ground is in the region before the storm, economical status of the countries that experienced landfall, etc can have huge impacts on the deaths and damage, and are hard to predict just a few days in advance.

Hurricane Bret 1999 was stronger at landfall than Harvey 2017, yet Bret wasn't even retired because it hit a sparsely populated area, and moved inland quicker without much rain threat. Similarly, as bad as Laura was, it could have been way worse with $100+ billion damage if it took the west track into Houston that the Euro predicted multiple runs before landfall. The 2020 season had a greater number of US hurricane landfalls than 2017, yet less monetary damage and deaths.

Even a predominantly OTS season like 2010 can still be impactful: two intense Mexico landfalls in Alex and Karl, two retired names Igor and Tomas, and also TS Matthew with 126 deaths.

[underthwx]

Well if what models are showing about a potential stalling tropical cyclone near Texas actually occurs, I am thinking damage will be quite high since it is not even September yet.

Also, the damage from Henri could be high in New England.

Actually, impacts ended up being far less than expected.

True that....thankfully it would appear as tho the impacts will be less severe than anticipated...

[AlphaToOmega]

So far, this hurricane season has cost $52G in damage. That could rise at any moment. There are still 25 days left of September, not to mention October and November.

[Category5Kaiju]

Wikipedia has Ida as the third costliest cyclone with at least 95 billion dollars in damage. The fact that Ida surpassed Maria and Sandy in damage really is remarkable and horrific.

[Teban54]

Wikipedia has Ida as the third costliest cyclone with at least 95 billion dollars in damage. The fact that Ida surpassed Maria and Sandy in damage really is remarkable and horrific.

I wouldn't put too much stock on the current Wikipedia estimates (which are mostly based on news reports). At one point some sources estimated Harvey's damage to be almost $200 billion, and Wikipedia had it as the third costliest natural disaster of all time; the official figure a few months later was $125 billion.

That said, at this point I'm pretty confident Ida will make it to the top 5 costliest hurricanes.

[Ubuntwo]

Wikipedia has Ida as the third costliest cyclone with at least 95 billion dollars in damage. The fact that Ida surpassed Maria and Sandy in damage really is remarkable and horrific.

That’s the upper end of accuweather’s estimate. They have been too high with many storms so don’t put much weight on it yet. Damage is still being assessed.

[Stormybajan]

Wikipedia has Ida as the third costliest cyclone with at least 95 billion dollars in damage. The fact that Ida surpassed Maria and Sandy in damage really is remarkable and horrific.

I think that will come down to around 50-60 billion. Teban54 said Wikipedia usually overestimates the actual damages before the damage assessment is 100% completed. Harvey's 200 billion estimate will always stick with me

[aspen]

Wikipedia has Ida as the third costliest cyclone with at least 95 billion dollars in damage. The fact that Ida surpassed Maria and Sandy in damage really is remarkable and horrific.

I think that will come down to around 50-60 billion. Teban54 said Wikipedia usually overestimates the actual damages before the damage assessment is 100% completed. Harvey's 200 billion estimate will always stick with me

I remember when it was estimated to be nearly $400 billion.

[Category5Kaiju]

Ok, you guys have very good points. I was simply very shocked to see that amount of damage on wikipedia, but for Harvey to be 400 billion at one point, I'll likely not put much stock into the 95 billion for Ida going forward. However, the main takeaway is that Ida was one heck of a costly storm, and with us not knowing what kinds of September or October threats could come (but with a La Nina coming), the price tag of this season could unfortunately be pretty high in the end.

[al78]

Hurricane Bret 1999 was stronger at landfall than Harvey 2017 ...

No it wasn't. Bret was a minimal category 3 at landfall (it weakened on approach to land) whereas Harvey made landfall as a minimal category 4.

[al78]

Wikipedia has Ida as the third costliest cyclone with at least 95 billion dollars in damage. The fact that Ida surpassed Maria and Sandy in damage really is remarkable and horrific.

I imagine much of that will be from rainfall-induced flooding as the storm came inland. The thing with tropical cyclones is that although the damaging winds weaken quickly after landfall, they can still dump a lot of rain hundreds of miles inland, especially if the circulation interacts with topography or an upper level trough.

[al78]

So far, this hurricane season has cost $52G in damage. That could rise at any moment. There are still 25 days left of September, not to mention October and November.

It doesn't look like we are going to get a La Nina as strong as last year, if we get one at all, so hopefully we won't see the season go insane churning out major after major like we did in autumn last year.