Biggest Weather Events of 2012

By Paul Yeager, author of Literally, the Best Language Book Ever and Weather Whys: Facts, Myths, and Oddities

I find it amusing how we can turning anything into a top-10 list at this time of year; it’s a fine tradition between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

I don’t like to do that sort of thing with important weather events since major storms are too serious for too many people to make them into some sort of whimsical list. Even if I did want to do that, how would you rank them? The worst storms in terms of dollars done, or the worst storms in terms of lives lost?

I don’t know; it just strikes me as a bit insensitive, but I’m sure you can find some of those lists out there.

The closest I came is my recent post on Huffington Post that highlights the billion-dollar-plus storms of 2012. It’s not a ranking, just a list from NOAA.