Jason Garza as shot for The Texas Tribune
Two trillion, six-hundred and fifteen billion dollars.
It's an amount so large it's almost impossible to comprehend. It represents the estimated tab for 371 weather and climate disasters in the US since 1980 that topped $1 billion in damage. On the list are many of the country's most destructive tropical cyclones, droughts, and severe storms, the most recent being Hurricane Idalia.
They're the events we can remember — and many more we likely can't because so many more disasters have been breaking into the billion-dollar club in recent years. Decade to decade, costly extreme weather events are increasing in both frequency and intensity as greenhouse gases build up in our atmosphere.