An active week of US storms was compounded by catastrophic damage resulting from a dangerous derecho event that Aon says severely impacted Iowa and Illinois on August 10, producing peak wind gusts topping 100mph.
Aon’s weekly natural catastrophe report describes a derecho as a fast-moving cluster of thunderstorms that travels hundreds of miles and is marked by widespread straight-line wind damage.
This event left at least 1 million customers without power, and had considerable impacts to property, vehicles, and agribusiness. Flash flooding later affected the Mid-Atlantic on August 12.
Total aggregated economic damage to property, infrastructure, and agriculture during the stretch was likely to result in a multi-billion-dollar cost
Elsewhere, an active weather pattern aided by a strong upper level disturbance in central Canada resulted in several days of extensive severe weather across the eastern two-thirds of the United States from August 8-12.
At least two people were killed and most damage was incurred in parts of the Plains, Midwest, and the Mid-Atlantic.
Aon notes that Impactful hail events initially occurred in the Black Hills of South Dakota on August 8 and the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro region in Minnesota on August 9.
