
Lytton is home to the Lytton First Nation, a Nlaka'pamux band. Quillayute is located near the lush Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula, just three miles from the Pacific Ocean, and receives an average of 100 inches of precipitation per year. Quillayute, Washington, broke its all-time high by a truly astonishing 11☏, after hitting 110☏ on June 29 (old record: 99☏ on August 9, 1981).The old Canadian heat record was 8☏ cooler, 45.0☌ (113☏) on July 5, 1937. Canada broke its all-time national temperature record on three consecutive days at Lytton, British Columbia, which topped out at a stunning 49.6☌ (121☏) on June 29 – a day before the town burned down in a ferocious wildfire fed by the extreme heat.Two examples of the insane extremity of the heat wave: The only deadlier weather disaster of 2021 was summer monsoon flooding in India that claimed 1,292 lives, according to insurance broker Aon. The intense heat wave was the second-deadliest weather disaster of the year, with 1,037 deaths: 808 in western Canada and 229 in the northwestern U.S.

Never in the century-plus history of world weather observation have so many all-time heat records fallen by such a large margin than in the historic late-June 2021 heat wave in western North America. The most extreme heat wave in world history Below is a list of the top-10 weather and climate change events of 2021, as rated by the impacts on humans and/or meteorological significance. These disasters were not shown in the original versions of Figure 1 or Figure 2, but are shown here.Ī total of eight extreme weather events were ranked in the top ten in addition, there were two concerning climate change discoveries that may presage serious future challenges. disasters that had crossed the $20 billion threshold, thanks to inflation adjustments.
KOTH NANCY GRIBBLE BIG WEATHER EVENT UPDATE
Also note that a January 10, 2022, update from NOAA listed two more U.S. Aon also has a much higher cost for the 2021 European floods: $43 billion. Note that the database from insurance broker Aon has at least one $20+ billion-dollar event not in the EMDAT database: monsoon flooding in China that cost $35 billion in 2020. is from NOAA data for the rest of the world is from the international disaster database, EMDAT. Global weather mega-disasters costing at least $20 billion (adjusted to 2021 dollars) from 1980-2021, as of January 2022. Sign up for our newsletters and never miss a story.įigure 2 (Updated ). The climate is changing, and our journalists are here to help you make sense of it.

There has been a concerning rise in these mega-disasters in recent years, as evidenced by the blue linear trend line, and 2021 had the most on record: four.
KOTH NANCY GRIBBLE BIG WEATHER EVENT SERIES
Time series of global weather mega-disasters costing at least $20 billion (adjusted to 2021 dollars). Not only did it feature the most extreme heat wave in history – the late June heat wave over western North America that smashed all-time records by unprecedented margins – it also had four weather mega-disasters costing over $20 billion each, tied with 2017 for the most such disasters on record. The year 2021 made an indelible mark in the annals of weather history.
