🌪️ U.S. Billion Dollar-Disasters in 2025

🌪️ U.S. Billion Dollar-Disasters in 2025

For decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s billion-dollar disaster dataset put a dollar amount on the cost of climate change and severe weather events in the United States. In May of this year, the Trump administration announced it was shutting down the website. However, Climate Central, a nonprofit research organization, announced last Monday that it revived the dataset and will continue the important work of tracking major disasters to help first responders, the insurance industry, planning, recovery operations, and assessments. Through the first six months of 2025, the U.S. has experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters, with several others still being assessed. The 14 confirmed events are estimated to have a total cost of $101.4 billion, and resulted in at least 174 deaths. Six of the confirmed events were tornado outbreaks, six others were severe weather outbreaks, one was a hail storm with flooding, and another was the Los Angeles wildfires.

Climate Central

💨 America’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm

Dominion Energy is building America’s biggest offshore wind farm about 30 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia. The project has been 12 years in the making, has already cost Dominion Energy $6 billion, created 2,000 jobs, and generated $2 billion in economic activity. The 176 wind turbines are expected to provide 2.6 gigawatts of power. The project will start feeding power to the grid by March of 2026, with completion projected to be by late 2026. Virginia is at the center of the nationwide boom in data-center construction, and the project will provide a large amount of carbon-free power to help the state meet a deluge of new electricity demand. It will help both the state and Dominion keep pace with rising demand without having to burn more polluting fossil fuels.

Clare Fieseler, Canary Media

🦟 Mosquitos Found in Iceland for the First Time Ever

Mosquitos were detected in Iceland for the first time ever on October 16, 2025, leaving Antarctica to be the only location remaining without mosquitos. There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitos around the globe. They are cold-blooded and typically thrive in warmer environments. Although it is unclear how the two males and one female mosquito came to be in Iceland, a growing number of new insect species are being observed in Iceland due to the country warming at an unprecedented rate. This May, Iceland’s temperatures were 13C warmer than average, a temperature where the mosquitos can survive. The record-breaking heat also sped up glacial melting in the country, noting that mosquitos breed in shallow, stagnant bodies of water which Iceland has in abundance. Scientists say that mosquitos are a valuable indicator of environmental change and they help scientists track how ecosystems respond to a warming climate.

Sarah Shamim, Al Jazeera