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Introduction
1998 was a year which featured numerous extreme climatic events. NCDC issued eighteen special reports covering these events during 1998--see below for links to these reports. There were also at least six weather related disasters in the U.S. that reached or exceeded the billion dollar mark in terms of direct and indirect damages/costs. These six events-- northeast ice storm, southeast severe weather and tornadoes, southern drought/heat wave, Texas flooding, Hurricane Bonnie, and Hurricane Georges--caused over $17 billion in damages and approximately 400 fatalities in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico).The U.S. has sustained 40 weather-related disasters over the
past 20 years in which overall damages and costs reached or
exceeded $1 billion. 34 of these disasters occurred during the
1988-1999 period with total damages/costs exceeding $170 billion.
The Billion Dollar U.S. Weather
Disasters, 1980-1999 report can be accessed using this link or
in the list below.
Special Summaries of Extreme Events During 1998
Top Weather
and Climate Stories of 1998">
Billion Dollar U.S. Weather
Disasters, 1980-1999
Climatic Extremes
of the Summer of 1998 (Tech Report, PDF File)
Mitch: The Deadliest
Atlantic Hurricane Since 1780
Typhoons and Flooding in
Philippines--September-October 1998 (brief report, data)
Georges Pummels
Caribbean--September 1998
Bonnie Buffets North
Carolina--August 1998
Severe Flooding in North
and South Korea--July-August 1998 (brief report, data)
Monsoonal Flooding in
India and Bangladesh--July-September 1998 (brief report,
data)
Heat and
Precipitation Extremes--Summer 1998
Weather
Extremes--Summer 1998
Flooding in
China--Summer 1998
Florida
Wildfires--June 1998
El Nino Induced Flooding
in South America--January-April 1998 (brief report, data)
Wet Southeast and Gulf
Coast (El Nino Event)
California
Flooding and Florida Tornadoes--February 1998
Eastern U.S. Flooding
and Ice Storm--January 1998
The El Nino Winter of '97-'98 (Tech Report)
El Nino/La Nina--Reports
and Data
1998
Wildfires Throughout the World
Storm Events
The new Storm
Events files are a WWW subset of the popular NCDC publication
"Storm Data". This database contains natural hazard damages
chronologically by state and time for a given month. The user can
select any state or states, and any or all of the 15
weather-related damage categories (drought, hail, fog, t-storm,
high winds, etc), along with any month beginning with January 1996,
and get a list of the damage reports associated with the
event.
Selected U.S. City Extremes
The Selected U.S. City
Extremes give a listing of new records that were set
chronologically across the U.S. during 1998.