Most Devastating Natural Disasters in America in 2021

This Category 1 hurricane made landfall near Sargent Beach, Texas, about 80 miles south of Houston. It moved slowly toward Louisiana in the following days, producing heavy rainfall and flooding in areas of the Gulf Coast that had already been ravaged by Hurricane Ida (the costliest U.S. weather disaster of 2021) two weeks earlier.

Severe storms dumped hail in numerous states including Nebraska, the Dakotas, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, and Texas. The storms also produced high winds that inflicted damaged to properties and vehicles.

More than seven inches of rain fell in a short period of time along the coast of Central and Southern California, causing flooding, mudslides and power outages in many areas that had already been damaged recently by wildfires. Rainfall totals topped 15 inches in San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties.

This tropical storm made landfall in Taylor County, Florida, about 50 miles southeast of Tallahassee, inflicting heavy rains, high winds, and tornadoes on parts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. The effects of the storm were felt into the Northeast where it caused flash flooding on Long Island.

Severe storms that caused high winds, hail, and tornadoes damaged swaths of Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. More than 111 tornadoes were registered during this severe weather, mostly in Mississippi and surrounding states.

Thunderstorms, high winds, hail, and tornadoes inflicted damage to property, vehicles, and crops. Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and Texas bore the brunt of this severe weather.

High winds that lasted three days were to blame for most of the damage caused by this severe weather. The weather disaster damaged communities in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri.

Making landfall in Panama City on the Florida panhandle, this tropical storm inflicted heavy damage on its northward trajectory. The storm caused heavy flooding in the southern Appalachian Mountains and western North Carolina and created nearly a dozen tornadoes in the Northeast.

Hail, high winds, and more than two dozen tornadoes impacted communities in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and Virginia. The severe weather also caused flooding in Nashville and damaging high winds in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.

Heavy rains in Louisiana and coastal Texas flooded communities across this region. Thousands of properties and vehicles were inundated in and near Baton Rouge and Lake Charles as more than 12 inches of rain fell over a short period of time.

A string of heavy hail storms ravaged central Texas communities. The most affected areas included northeast of Austin, southwest of The Woodlands, and west of Georgetown.

Hail and high winds damaged properties across Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri. The most severe damage occurred in southeastern Minnesota, southern Iowa, southeastern Indiana, and southwestern Ohio.

Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia were affected by at least 41 tornadoes, including five that registered wind speeds of between 157 and 261 mph. The strongest twisters touched down in central Alabama and western Georgia.

A rare derecho (a widespread, long-lived wind storm) erupted across Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. This was the first December derecho ever recorded in the United States (three-quarters of them occur between May and August). Seventeen tornadoes were reported in southeast Minnesota during this weather event.

Tornadoes, sustained high winds, flooding, and hail caused widespread damage across Texas and Oklahoma. Some of the most impacted areas were in Texas, including west of San Antonio, north of Fort Worth, and southwest of San Marcos.

An unusual outbreak of December tornadoes unleashed their wrath on several southeastern and central states, including two very strong and sustained twisters, as they cut through Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The storm produced the longest tornado track (the path a tornado takes after touching ground and until it dissipates) on record for the month of December: 166 miles through Kentucky and part of Tennessee.

Drought conditions endured throughout the year across many Western states, inflicting huge agricultural losses and shutting down California’s Lake Oroville hydroelectric plant for the first time since it opened in 1967. Extreme heat also impacted millions of people in the Northwest, causing more than two hundred fatalities.

Western drought conditions and periods of extreme heat sparked another hugely damaging string of wildfires across California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Arizona. The so-called Dixie Fire (the second-largest single wildfire recorded in California) sent more than 960,000 acres and over 1,000 properties up in smoke. In total, over 7.1 million acres burned in the U.S. during the 2021 wildfire season.

Historic cold weather and winter storms inflicted massive damage across much of the northern top of the contiguous United States, southward to Texas. At one point, power outages caused by the freak weather cut power to 10 million people. Texas, which operates an independent electrical grid in order to avoid federal power regulations, suffered rolling blackouts because it couldn’t rely on electricity from interstate U.S. grids.

Hurricane Ida, the Category 4 storm responsible for more the half of the total cost of the weather disasters on this list, made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, about 100 miles south of New Orleans, damaging or completely destroying all of the homes in this coastal community. Millions of people in Louisiana lost power before the storm made its way into the Northeast, causing flash flooding from eastern Pennsylvania to New York.