During the first 9 months (Jan-Sept) of 2017, the U.S. experienced 15 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. 2017 ties the record year of 2011 for the most (15) billion-dollar disasters for the year to date. The record number of billion-dollar disasters for a calendar year is 16 events set in 2011. The 2017 events include two floods, a freeze, seven severe storms, three tropical cyclones, a drought and wildfire. In 2017, we have seen the rare combination of high disaster frequency, disaster cost and diversity of weather and climate extreme events.   We can't say yet that 2017 will eclipse 2005 in terms of total cost since we are still assessing the hurricane costs.  However, 2017 is more historic than 2005 in terms of event frequency and diversity, aside from the comparative hurricane impacts.