High-Impact Weather and Climate Events

High-impact events cause the majority of societal costs related to weather and climate. They provoke societal responses that can either enhance or detract from long-term adaptation to climate risk. In 2015, WWA began a new research focus on extremes that is designed to place high-impact events in the context of historical climate variability and projected climate change, assess how the risk of these events varies over time and space, and examine how high-impact events interact with place-based vulnerability.

The first activities in this new research theme have been to build a database of 160+ historical high-impact weather and climate events in the three-state region, and to generate a complementary set of regional event maps showing how risk varies seasonally across the region for different types of weather and climate events.

All CPI-Adjusted Damage costs are 2022 values, calculated from: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/. CPI-Adjusted Damage costs are unavailable before the year 1913.

Note: The High-Impact Events Database is currently being updated with more features. Stay tuned.

Filter between two years
State County City Date Event Type Deaths CPI Adjusted Unadjusted Summary Links
Colorado Gunnison Woodstock March 10, 1884 Avalanche 13
Colorado San Miguel Telluride December 01, 1883 Avalanche 8
Colorado Park January 01, 1877 Avalanche 8
Colorado Denver, Arapahoe Denver May 19, 1864 Flood 20 $1,000,000.00
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