Aon Benfield’s latest catastrophe report reveals that in the United States, severe drought conditions persisted in western regions with total economic losses expected to reach at least US3bn – mostly attributable to agricultural damage in California. Several Caribbean and Central American nations issued alerts as droughts worsened.

Drought conditions also affected Eastern Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America during August, with combined economic losses of more than US$2.6bn occurring in Romania, Czech Republic and Poland.

As El Niño continues to intensify in the coming months, it is expected that global drought losses will surpass the current forecast of US$8bn in economic damage.

Steve Bowen, Impact Forecasting associate director and meteorologist, said: “As we continue to see the prospect of El Niño becoming one of the strongest in decades, more and more impacts will be apparent around the world. This is already true in the form of global drought losses, as several countries have endured a severe lack of rainfall and agricultural impacts. On the flip side, tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific Ocean maintained its torrid pace in August due to above-average sea surface temperatures and favorable atmospheric conditions. Multiple landfalling storms in Asia-Pacific left considerable damage, and more activity is expected as we enter the peak of the cyclone season.”

Elsewhere during August, Super Typhoon Soudelor tracked through Saipan, Taiwan, and China causing economic losses in excess of US$3.2bn. Soudelor was followed by Typhoon Goni which wrought havoc in Philippines, the Korean peninsula, and Japan, killing at least 70 people, damaging tens of thousands of homes and causing economic losses well into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Further natural hazard events that occurred during August:

• Tropical Storm Erika impacted Dominica, Greater Antilles, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, killing 36 people and causing economic losses of around USD100 million.

• Heavy monsoon rains killed hundreds of people throughout Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

• Record US flooding in the greater Tampa, Florida metro region caused widespread property and automobile damage.

• A severe weather outbreak prompted economic losses of US$475m and insured losses of US$325m in the US, mainly due to hail and damaging straight-line winds.

• China experienced two severe weather outbreaks that prompted economic losses of more than US$340m.

• Severe weather killed 20 people in Sudan.

• The western third of the US, Canada’s British Columbia province, and southern and central portions of Europe all suffered damaging wildfire outbreaks during August. The costs of fighting the fires soared to well beyond US$1bn globally.

• Heatwave conditions throughout EMEA killed at least 125 people.

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