2 separate billion-dollar weather disasters have affected the QC so far this year

QUAD CITIES, Iowa/Ill. (KWQC) - It has been a busy severe weather season across eastern Iowa and western Illinois. From very large hail and damaging, straight-line winds, to more than 30 tornadoes, the severe weather is causing billions of dollars in losses.

Large hail, damaging wind and tornadoes. It has been an active start to the severe weather season not only on a local level, but nationally as well.

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information has released the billion dollar weather and climate disasters through the first four months of the year, and so far there have been seven nationwide; five severe weather or tornado events, one winter storm and one flood event.

These events had damage costs potentially exceeding $1 billion.

One event was the tornado outbreak across the central US on March 31 and April 1, which included eastern Iowa and western Illinois.

29 tornadoes touched down in our area, the most ever, locally, according to data going back to 1950 from the National Weather Service Quad Cities office

One of those tornadoes was an EF-4 in Keota with winds estimated around 170 mph

11 people were injured and fortunately nobody was killed, locally.

However, nationwide 33 people lost their lives from at least 145 tornadoes during the historic outbreak.

Total losses are estimated to be at least $4.3 BILLION. Another event that impacted the QCA was the severe weather outbreak affecting the central and eastern US from April 4-6.

Several rounds of severe weather moved through the TV6 viewing area on April 4-5, including the Quad Cities metro.

“Four inch diameter hail at the NorthPark Mall in Davenport. Estimated 90 mile per hour or so straight-line wind, and brief tornadoes embedded in all that,” said Rich Kinney, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at National Weather Service Quad Cities.

Six tornadoes caused damage in the QCA, along with several reports of quarter to baseball size hail.

More than 35 tornadoes were confirmed across the country, resulting in at least five deaths and $2.2 billion in damages.

The annual average number of billion-dollar disasters nationwide is 8.1 based on data from 1980 through 2022. Last year, there were 18 separate billion-dollar disasters. All costs are CPI adjusted.

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