Winter weather took $1 billion toll in February
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Claims resulting from brutal winter weather in the U.S. coupled with typhoon and flood-related damage in Asia helped create global insured losses of over $1 billion in the month of February, according to a report published Friday by Impact Forecasting, the catastrophe modeling team of Aon Benfield Group Inc.
Five separate periods of heavy snow, frigid cold, freezing rain and ice impacted the U.S. Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Plains and Southeast during the month, the report notes. The storms had an outsized impact on New England, where snowfall totals reached 31 inches in parts of Massachusetts and several buildings collapsed under the weight of the snow.
“Prolific winter weather highlighted a very active February for the eastern half of the United States,” Steve Bowen, Impact Forecasting senior scientist and meteorologist, said in a statement Friday. “Boston was the epicenter for record snowfall that resulted from an onslaught of strong winter storm systems.”
Elsewhere, the Indonesian islands of Java, Bali, and West Nusa Tenggara were impacted by floods triggered by heavy rainfall from Jan. 31 through Feb. 2. On Feb. 8, torrential rainfall inundated Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. The flooding caused by the rainfall killed six people and caused total economic damages estimated at $235 million.
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