AccuWeather's Jon Porter reports estimated damage and economic losses from the central U.S. tornado outbreak totaling between $9 billion and $11 billion as the peak of severe weather season looms.
00:00This stretch of stormy weather started on Thursday. That was the 15th of May, and since Thursday, we've seen day after day of severe weather. It's really starting to take a toll. But by and large, it was Friday, May 16th, that we've seen most of the damage.
00:18That was the peak of this particular outbreak with multi-states dealing with tornadoes. Some of these were very significant. EF4 near Marion, Illinois, and also, of course, EF3 right in the core of the St. Louis metro area. That's the one that did a tremendous amount of damage.
00:36And here are some specifics about that tornado, Bernie. It was on the ground for more than 20 minutes, an EF3 tornado with peak winds of 152 miles per hour, on the ground for 22.8 miles, a continuous stretch from just northwest to northwestern suburbs of St. Louis, right through the northwestern part of the city, out across the river into Edwardsville, Illinois.
01:00And when you have a tornado with such intense winds in a densely populated area, Bernie, that's lots of homes, lots of businesses, lots of cars that can be damaged or destroyed.
01:13And that's what occurred in this case. It's responsible for perhaps $2.5 billion worth of total damage and economic loss itself.
01:21And you and the experts and our team of experts, our financial experts and our meteorologists took a look at this, John, and you mentioned St. Louis itself, over a billion dollars. And once again, another billion dollar disaster. Let's talk about how we came up with this number of 9 to 11 billion during this stretch of severe weather.
01:45Right. We're looking at the most holistic number that's available for total damage and economic loss because we're looking at not only the damage, insured and uninsured, other short-term impacts such as business closures, supply chain impacts, but also longer-term impacts, including health impacts, physical and mental health, all of that and impacts to some small businesses, unfortunately, may never reopen.
02:08So that's how we come up with the preliminary number. And of course, there's going to be a lot of people who are in need of help here as they begin the long process of rebuilding.
02:18And we're thinking about all the people that have been affected by this latest natural disaster.
02:22John, we have about a minute left. I want to show you this graphic. This is stunning, what we've seen so far, as far as not only the billion-dollar disasters, and we've already had four, but the diversity of the extreme weather events.
02:36Right. From wildfires across the western U.S., the Gulf Coast, historic winter storm, to the severe flooding that occurred just a couple of weeks ago across the nation's central part of the United States, 2025 not off to a good start in terms of tremendous impact from damage from natural disasters, wide range of them across the country.
02:57Including tornadoes. Look at that steep increase in our tornado production since March.
03:01It's like a hockey stick. Of course, that's the time of the year, but we're going to keep adding to that here over the coming days.
03:07And we're not done, John. We are approaching the peak of the severe weather season.
03:13And oh, by the way, hurricane season is just a couple weeks away.
03:18AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
03:20John, thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.
