The Top 5 Weather Events of All Time

Freak weather events are happening all the time since time immemorial. Some of these extreme weather occurrences cost billions of dollars and affecting thousands to millions of people. Others will pass on history due to their limited scope in both damages and life lost. This article will show a few of these happenings on record that are yet to be broken


The Great Hurricane of 1780. Also known as the hurricane San Calixto II, this weather event killed over 27, 500 people in Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean in the middle of October. Recorded wind speed was put at 320 kilometers per hour. This hurricane also wreaked havoc on the contesting British and French Fleets plying the seas around the Americas. This hurricane is part of the deadly three-hurricane event that struck the Caribbean during that same year.


Hurricane Katrina. Although Katrina was just ranked as the sixth strongest overall hurricane that ever hit the US, it was considered one of the top 5 deadliest, and the costliest hurricane in history. It was labeled a category 3 hurricane but much of its reputation did not come from its strength. It took almost 2000 lives but created the worst flooding in history, submerging 80% of New Orleans, Louisiana and some parts of Mississippi for weeks. It was estimated that this natural phenomenon's damage to property reached 100 billion dollars.


The Bhola Cyclone. This tropical cyclone impacted East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and India's West Bengal on the 12th of November 1970. it the deadliest recorded tropical cyclone in modern times, killing 500,000 people. Subsequent flooding in the low-islands of the Ganges Delta was the main culprit though. The storm reached an equivalent of Category 3 hurricane. It devastated many offshore islands, wiping out villages, and causing severe food shortage by destroying crops along its path.


The 1887 Yellow River Flood. Considered one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, this severe flooding in China's Yellow river resulted to 900,000 deaths. Although Yellow River was prone to flooding due to its elevated nature, ti never reached to the point of killing that much number of people. It was the heavy rains before the flood that collapsed the hand-made dikes built by farmers living at the banks of the river. The massive flood covered a staggering 50,000 square miles, swamping many agricultural settlements and commercial centers. The aftermath left 2 million people homeless. Resulting pandemic and food shortage after the flood claimed as many lives as those lost during the flood itself.


The 1931 Central China floods. China is home to some of the world's largest river systems in the world and for that it has to pay dearly in terms of human life. In 1931, a series of floods occurred in the regions of Central China that resulted to about 4 million deaths. This estimate does not include the pandemics and the lives affected after the floods themselves. The rivers involved in this massive flooding are the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and the Huai River.

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