San Antonio is bracing for freezing weather — and hoping it won’t be as catastrophic as Winter Storm Uri. Credit: Sanford Nowlin

Texas has experienced a lot of natural disasters lately, among them a historic deep freeze and an oppressive heatwave, not to mention the tornadoes, cyclones and flash floods that regularly plague parts of the state.

Not surprisingly, a new study ranked Texas as the U.S. state third-most affected by costly natural disasters since 1980. That puts it behind hurricane-prone Mississippi and Louisiana, which took the No. 1 and No. 2 spots respectively, according to researchers with finance site Wallet Hub, which compiled the report.

Although Texas is already susceptible to extreme weather events, a separate report published last month warned that weather-related disasters, such as South Texas’ ongoing heat wave, could become the norm due to climate change.

To determine which states were among the most ravaged by costly natural disasters, WalletHub compared all 50 across two key metrics, including the number of climate disasters causing at least $1 billion in damage since 1980 and the economic loss per capita for each disaster.

Researchers used data from the federal National Centers for Environmental Information’s (NCEI) Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Report to compile the new study.

Of all states, Texas had the most climate-related disasters causing at least $1 billion in damages between 1980 and 2023. The most common costly natural disasters hitting the Lone Star State during that time were tropical cyclones, followed by drought and severe thunderstorms.

Among the disasters inflicting the most damage on Texas were Hurricane Harvey, which decimated the Gulf Coast in 2017 to the tune of $125 billion in damage, and 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, which cost the state at least $195 billion.

The drought now baking San Antonio and other parts of Texas also has the potential to be another billion-dollar disaster, according to the NCEI.

“The agriculture sector has been impacted across the affected states, including damage to field crops from lack of rainfall,” the agency noted in its report. “Ranchers have also been forced to sell off livestock early in some regions due to high feeding costs.”

The NCEI data used in WalletHub’s report also suggests that costly climate catastrophes are becoming more common because “climate change is increasing the frequency of some types of extremes that lead to billion-dollar disasters.”

Indeed, the NCEI’s data echoes a study published in July by World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists who measure how much climate change influences extreme weather events. In that report, scientists observed that the heatwave searing South Texas and Northern Mexico would be “virtually impossible” without climate change. Further, they warned more extreme heat events are on the way.

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This article appears in Aug 9-22, 2023.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...