"The U.S. sustained 58 weather-related disasters during the 1980-2003 period in which overall losses reached or exceeded $1 billion dollars at the time of the event. This analysis did not include any events that had unadjusted damages/losses less than $1 billion dollars and then subsequently may have reached $1 billion after applying the GNP inflation/wealth index. Forty-nine of these disasters occurred since 1988 with total unadjusted losses of nearly $220 billion. Seven events occurred in 1998 alone, the most for any year in this summary period, though other years have recorded higher damage totals"--Page 2.

Public Domain