Climate Impact Report – 10/30

October 30, 2024

Key Facts Of The Day 10/30

According to the Office of Insurance Regulation, the financial wreckage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton has now exceeded $4 billion in Florida alone.
As of October 25, 2024, there have been 247,432 total insurance claims filed in Florida for damage caused by Hurricane Milton.
A month after Hurricane Helene, the neighborhood Beacon Village in Swannanoa, North Carolina, is continuing to sort through the damage.
In western North Carolina, impacts from Hurricane Helene are still threatening healthcare.
On Wednesday, severe thunderstorms will likely develop along a cold front moving through the Kansas City area, bringing the threat of damaging wind gusts and brief tornadoes.

As of Wednesday, 13 large active wildfires have burned 1,053,572 acres across CA, MA, MI, MO, NM, OK, OR, UT, and WY. This year to date, 46,594 wildfires have burned 7,986,280 acres across the country.
In California, 1 fire has burned 5,124 acres as of Wednesday.
In Massachusetts, 2 fires have burned 301 acres as of Wednesday.
In Michigan, 1 fire has burned 304 acres as of Wednesday.
In Missouri, 1 fire has burned 825 acres as of Wednesday.
In New Mexico, 1 fire has burned 250 acres as of Wednesday.
In Oklahoma, 6 fires have burned 20,773 acres as of Wednesday.
In Oregon, 1 fire has burned 176,661 acres as of Wednesday.
In Utah, 1 fire has burned 33,045 acres as of Wednesday.
In Wyoming, 2 fires have burned 188,282 acres as of Wednesday.
More than 700 homes were under evacuation orders near the town of Divide, Colorado, as a wildfire continued to burn out of control Tuesday.
Officials order evacuations for some communities in central Oklahoma as wind gusts reaching 40-50 mph fan wildfires.

According to the 2024 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, climate change exposed people to an average of 50 more days of health-threatening temperatures around the world and drove heat-related deaths to record high in 2023.
- In 2023, heat-related deaths in people over age 65 increased by 167% globally, above levels seen in the 1990s.
- People were also exposed to an average of 1,512 hours of high temperatures that posed at least a moderate risk of heat stress when doing light exercise such as walking or cycling — a 27.7% increase on the 1990-1999 yearly average.
According to the 2024 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, extreme drought lasting at least one month affected 48% of the global land area in 2023.