Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

The Post endorses April McClain Delaney and Tom Royals for Maryland’s 6th District

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

The ‘Access Hollywood’ video cemented Trump’s air of invincibility

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

In a pinch, the Nationals finally find some offense

Is Pastis as good as our food critic thought? He sent spies to find out.

The Capitals, a team in transition, know what they want this offseason

Ask Amy: My boyfriend just confessed he’s almost $20,000 in debt

Miss Manners: Is it inappropriate to reach out to old girlfriends?

Carolyn Hax: Longtime friend won’t forgive being last-minute canceled for a guy

Biden confronts campus protests; Trump hedges on accepting election results

Kristi Noem just won’t stop talking about killing her dog

Noem’s dog-killing isn’t popular, though Trump supporters are divided

In photos: At least 39 dead as historic flooding hits southern Brazil

Sea level rise brings new era of dangerous flooding

Michael Cohen keeps broadcasting despite being a witness

Confident of victory over Ukraine, Russia exhibits Western war trophies

Two women are seeking Mexico’s presidency. But the race is about a man.

Hamas in Cairo for hostage talks as Israel briefs aid agencies on Rafah

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud’

Google’s empire is massive. A judge will soon rule if it’s a monopoly.

Five tech products we actually like

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Mark Humphrey

The year 2020 will go down in the history books as one riddled with a record number of billion-dollar disasters. According to a<a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/" target=_blank> new report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)</a> on Friday, losses in the United States alone tallied a staggering $95 billion from 22 separate billion-dollar events. The previous record for billion-dollar disasters was 16 in 2011 and in 2017.

The year marked the most severe wildfire season across the West to date, with California logging five of its six biggest wildfires in state history. It was also the Atlantic’s busiest hurricane season on record, with 12 landfalling named storms in the United States, while swarms of tornadoes ravaged the South.

From ferocious fires to a historic hurricane season, 2020 took weather to new extremes

The most expensive disasters stemmed from severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Hurricanes and tropical storms were close contenders, plaguing the Gulf Coast with relentless back-to-back strikes.

The disasters stand against the backdrop of a warming climate, with annual average temperatures in the Lower 48 states running 2.4 degrees above the 20th-century baseline. Globally, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/08/2020-hottest-year-earth/" target=_blank>2020 tied 2016 for the hottest year on record</a>, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

2020 tied with 2016 for Earth’s hottest year, as global warming overpowered La Niña

Climate change is tied to larger, more extreme fires, hurricanes that intensify more rapidly and other trends that lie behind an increase in disaster damages. Another factor is population growth, with more people and buildings in harm’s way.

Noah Berger

“Weather events have always and will always occur,” Steve Bowen, head of catastrophe insight at Aon Insurance, wrote in an email. “But with climate change expected to increasingly affect the behavior of weather events, and if you tie that with more ‘stuff’ in harm’s way, then the expectation is that resultant loss totals will also increase in the future.”

While the number of individual billion-dollar disasters topped the charts, 2020 still lags behind 2005, 2012 and 2017 for overall costs. 2005 hosted a record hurricane season that included storms Rita, Wilma and Katrina, while storms such as Harvey, Irma and Maria raged in 2017. Hurricane Sandy slammed New Jersey and New York City in 2012.

Thunderstorms were the costliest hazard of 2020

Thirteen of 2020′s billion-dollar weather disasters resulted from outbreaks of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, including several very costly hailstorms.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/03/03/how-deadly-destructive-tornadoes-ravaged-nashville-tuesday/" target=_blank>Nashville was hit</a> by one of the year’s most devastating storms. Residents went to sleep the night of March 2 with the forecast calling for isolated strong thunderstorms and a very low tornado risk. Instead, a vicious EF3 twister plowed through the city after midnight, while an even stronger EF4 ravaged Cookeville, 80 miles to the east. Twenty-five people died in the largely unpredicted storms, which caused $2.5 billion in damage.

April was jam-packed with costly severe weather, including at least three major tornado outbreaks during the historic month. With 351 tornadoes, the month <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/05/05/april-2020-was-second-most-active-such-month-tornadoes/" target=_blank>was the second-most active April for tornadoes on record</a>, behind only the famous outbreaks of April 25-28, 2011. The most substantial outbreak occurred on Easter Sunday, April 12. At least 140 tornadoes touched down during the twister swarm, which cost $3.6 billion and was blamed for 35 deaths.

The year also brought <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/17/iowa-derecho-damage-cost/" target=_blank>the most expensive single thunderstorm in U.S. history </a>— the Corn Belt derecho of Aug. 10.

A nondescript batch of severe thunderstorms blew up into a top-tier windstorm as it roared across Iowa during the early afternoon, lashing some communities like Cedar Rapids with winds of 120 to 140 mph. Unlike a tornado, this damage wasn’t localized — destructive to extreme winds plowed a path 770 miles long in 14 hours.

KC McGinnis

Much of the damage was agricultural; 10 million acres, or 43 percent of Iowa’s corn crop, was affected. Eleven billion dollars in damage resulted.

Iowa is as prone to destructive derechos as Florida is to hurricanes

David J. Phillip

A week before the derecho raked Iowa, hurricane season kicked into full force along the Gulf and East coasts. First up was Isaias in early August, a low-end Category 1 hurricane that rode up the Eastern Seaboard as a tropical storm. Damaging winds from the Carolinas to Maine cut power to millions, while the storm generated 34 tornadoes in the Mid-Atlantic and flooding rains. It caused 16 deaths and nearly $5 billion in damage.

Millions left in the dark and historic floods: Isaias by the numbers

And that was just the beginning. August concluded with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/weather/2020/08/27/storm-chasers-hurricane-laura/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_6" target=_blank>the most powerful hurricane to hit Louisiana in 150 years</a> when Category 4 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/26/hurricane-laura-updates-texas-louisiana/" target=_blank>Hurricane Laura slammed Lake Charles </a>with 150 mph winds. An “unsurvivable” storm surge narrowly missed the city. The storm incurred at least $19 billion in damage and claimed 42 lives. On Oct. 10, Category 2 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/10/hurricane-delta-louisiana/" target=_blank>Hurricane Delta hit virtually the exact same area</a>, causing an additional $2.9 billion in damage and yanking off hundreds of tarps serving as temporary roofs after the passage of Laura.

Matthew Cappucci

The hurricane season was punctuated by other billion-dollar storms, too — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/25/hurricane-hanna-texas/" target=_blank>Category 1 Hanna </a>caused just over $1 billion in damage at the end of July, with other storms such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/16/inside-eye-hurricane-sally/" target=_blank>Sally</a>, which hit Alabama, and<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/28/hurricane-zeta-track-louisiana/" target=_blank> Zeta, which breezed through New Orleans </a>and across the South, causing damage as well.

According to Munich Re, an insurance company, hurricane-related losses in the United States this year came to $43 billion. That’s about a fifth of the total loss from all natural disasters worldwide during 2020. Six of the world’s 10 priciest disasters of 2020 hit the United States.

David Zalubowski

In the West, storms weren’t the problem. In fact, it was the opposite — prolonged drought, extreme heat and widespread, strong offshore wind events, linked in large part to human-caused climate change, contributed to a record wildfire season.

Drought is the sleeper weather story you’ll hear more about in 2021

More than 10 million acres burned across the West, including California’s largest fire on record — the August Complex. It started as 37 individual blazes that merged into a massive fire that torched more than 1 million acres, becoming the state’s first “gigafire.” Some 10,500 structures were damaged or destroyed in California alone.

Maxar Technologies

Multiple wildfires exhibited extreme behavior, yielding smoke plumes <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/12/california-wildfires-smoke-plumes/" target=_blank>towering to 50,000</a> feet and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/16/california-fire-tornado-warning/" target=_blank>producing lightning and fire tornadoes</a>.

In Oregon, historic wildfires burned more than 2,000 buildings, while Colorado experienced an extreme fire season as well. The Centennial State’s three largest wildfires on record all took place during 2020. On the whole, wildfires caused $16.5 billion in destruction.

Jae C. Hong

The fires were fueled by persistent hot and dry weather, with California experiencing a long, hot spring, summer and fall, with its warmest August and September on record.

Studies have shown that climate change is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/11/western-wildfires-climate-change/" target=_blank>causing more extreme fire weather days, which feature exceptional heat and dryness, along with strong and often erratic winds</a>. Global warming has already led to a large increase in the occurrence of huge wildfires in the West, indicating that the massive blazes this year, which fouled the air across a broad region, were no fluke.

In early September, Los Angeles set a record high of 122 degrees, while temperature records fell up and down the Golden State.

How escalating climate change fuels California's infernos

That same record heat contributed to a worsening drought that engulfed the West, causing $4.5 billion in mainly agricultural losses.

The record number of billion-dollar events caused 262 deaths during 2020. Bowen says action is needed to address the increased movement of people into at-risk areas.

“While there is heavy focus on the frequency and intensity of events, we need to be equally highlighting that people are moving at an accelerated rate into some of the most vulnerable areas for extreme weather,” wrote Bowen. “It is imperative that we improve awareness around people better preparing their home or business in the face of inevitable [hazards].”

That, Bowen says, starts with knowing one’s own vulnerability.

“We need to ensure that people understand the natural peril risk at their location.”

<i>Andrew Freedman contributed to this report.</i>

Harvard University, B.A. Atmospheric Sciences

Matthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for Capital Weather Gang. He earned a B.A. in atmospheric sciences from Harvard University in 2019, and has contributed to The Washington Post since he was 18. He is an avid storm chaser and adventurer, and covers all types of weather, climate science, and astronomy.

Average Year-To-Date	1
Yearly Average	40
Record Most	67 (1980,2010)
Record Fewest	7 (1886,1905)
Last Year	38