As is tradition, annual climate reports from agencies around the world suggest the world is barreling towards (Editors: past?) global goals established in the Paris Climate Accord of 2015.
So goes the National Centers for Environment Information in their 2024 climate assessment of the contiguous United States. We post this and link back to the source hoping, fingers crossed but skeptical with the current administration’s hostility towards climate information, that it stays online. If not, here’s the summary (PDF).
Here are some highlights… or lowlights, as it were:
- The average annual temperature of the contiguous U.S. was 55.5°F, 3.5°F above average and the warmest in the 130-year record.
- Annual precipitation for the contiguous U.S. was 31.58 inches, 1.66 inches above average, ranking in the wettest third of the historical record (1895–2024).
- The Atlantic basin saw 18 named tropical cyclones and five landfalling hurricanes during 2024—an above-average season. Hurricane Helene was the seventh-most-costly Atlantic hurricane on record.
- The tornado count for 2024 was second highest on record behind 2004 (1,817 tornadoes) with at least 1,735 confirmed tornadoes. When looking at EF-2+ tornadoes, 2024 was the most active year since the historic 2011 season.
- Hurricane Helene’s extensive damage topped the list of 27 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events identified during 2024—the second-highest annual disaster count in the 45-year record.
- Drought coverage across the contiguous U.S. ranged from a minimum extent of 12 percent on June 11—the smallest contiguous U.S. footprint since early 2020—to a maximum coverage of 54 percent on October 29.
Our climate continues to get pricey. Here are initial costs associated with 2024 climate disasters:
The Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters update is a quantification of the weather and climate disasters that in 2024 led to more than $1 billion in collective damages for each event. During 2024, the U.S. experienced 27 weather and climate disasters each incurring losses that exceeded $1 billion. 2024 ranked second highest for the number of billion-dollar disasters in a calendar year. These disasters included: 17 severe storms, five tropical cyclones, two winter storms, one flooding event, one drought/heat wave and one wildfire event.
The U.S. cost for these disasters in 2024 was $182.7 billion and was fourth highest on record. The total annual cost may rise by several billion as additional costs from identified events are reported over time. There were at least 568 fatalities associated with these events—the eighth-highest number of fatalities on record.
Important to note: “This is also a record 14th consecutive year where the U.S. experienced 10 or more billion-dollar disasters and the fifth consecutive year (2020–24) where 18 or more billion-dollar disasters impacted the US.”
So there’s that.
As referenced above, the current administration is scrubbing governmental Web sites of information it doesn’t like. If what you’re looking for has been removed, try the United Nations Environment Programme along with its environmental statistics division.
If you have the time and capacity, there’s also the End of Term Archive which is a collaboration among various institutions to preserve government website data between administrations.