BUFFALO, N.Y. — In a new report published Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released preliminary data after "a month of extremes" of natural disasters in September.
The primary message: as of October 7, there have been 16 individual billion dollar disasters that have occurred this year. Eleven were due to severe storms alone that stretched across 30 states. The rest are comprised of one wildfire, drought and three tropical systems.
Six of those 16 have happened since June, being the western wildfires, mid-America drought and heatwave, Hurricane Sally, Hurricane Laura, Midwest derecho and Hurricane Isaias. This is a record tying number for most billion dollar disasters in a calendar year and 2020 isn't over yet, with hurricane Delta looming to make landfall the week the article is published.
Most of these disasters are related to regions experiencing above average temperatures and either wetter or drier seasons. Since January 1, the average temperature for the contiguous United States was 57.3 degrees, which is 2.3 degrees above the 20th-century average. This is the sixth warmest on record.
And here in Western New York, July of 2020 is now the warmest month on record for Buffalo and this summer was in total the second warmest on record with an average temperature of 72.8 degrees.
