Examining the Relationship Between Power Outages and Extreme Weather Events

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather. Hurricanes, wildfires, ice storms, flooding, and heat waves are growing in frequency, duration, and/or intensity with climate change. In the past five years there was a billion dollar weather disaster on average every 18 days in the U.S. These weather events put stress on the nation’s aging electrical infrastructure. Disruptions in the electrical grid affect millions of people each year, putting public health and safety at risk. Power failures also have cascading effects on other infrastructure and cost billions of dollars annually.

Using the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Electric Emergency and Disturbance Report which tracks national power outages, along with additional research, Climate Central analyzed the weather-related events that are most likely to lead to large-scale power outages. Our analysis has shown that about 83% of reported major outages in the U.S. were attributed to weather-related events. Most outages were caused by winter weather (22%), tropical cyclones (15%), and other severe weather (58%).

The analysis we will present analyzes states and regional patterns to determine which are most impacted by these outages, what weather events are most frequent, the specific elements (flooding, winds) related to more general events (severe storms, hurricanes) that lead to outages, and the relationship between power outages and larger trends in our changing climate.