The thunderstorms that struck the United States from May 20 to 27 will result insured losses to residential, commercial, and industrial properties, as well as automobiles , of between $4 billion and $7 billion.
That’s the estimate of catastrophe modeling firm
“This outbreak of tornadoes coupled with the unusually high number of tornadoes in April this year has turned what began as an unremarkable year,’’ said Dr. Tim Doggett, AIR’s principal scientist, into a year “that has produced almost twice as many preliminary tornado reports as the average since 2005, and that is on track to rival the very active 2008 season.”
He said 2011 likely will surpass 2008 in terms of insured losses from severe thunderstorm activity. Indeed, the two major outbreaks of this year—the first in late April, the second in late May—are “the costliest on record.”
AIR did not release total cost estimates Monday.
AIR estimated insured losses for the severe thunderstorm outbreak of April 22 to 28 at between $3.7 billion and $5.5 billion.
On May 20, severe thunderstorms in eastern Texas and parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma brought high winds, hail, and five reported tornadoes. Over the next seven days, more than 150 confirmed tornadoes raged across the heart of the country, Doggett noted. The severe weather funneled across a corridor that stretched from Lake Superior to central Texas and east through Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and to the East Coast, hitting more than 20 states in all. Thousands of buildings were damaged, hundreds more were completely destroyed, and more than a thousand people were injured.
None of the individual meteorological elements that gave rise to the outbreak of severe thunderstorms is unusual, he said. “Large, strong, jet stream disturbances happen occasionally; persistent low pressure frontal systems are common, especially in spring; and the storms that developed occurred where they are expected to occur at this time of year,’’ Doggett said. “What is unusual is for all of the factors that contribute to the development of severe thunderstorms to have aligned themselves so optimally in the same place at an opportune time. To get optimal intense instability, shear, and lift all in the same place for a long period of time is a relatively rare circumstance.”
