Hurricane Ian likely caused $53 billion to $74 billion in insured losses from Florida to the Carolinas, with a "best estimate" of $67 billion, according to new data released today from modeling firm RMS.
The big picture: These preliminary damage totals would make Hurricane Ian the costliest storm in Florida history and second nationally to Hurricane Katrina when adjusted for inflation.
Six Nobel Prizes will be awarded by committees in Sweden and Norway over the next week for work in the sciences, literature, economics and peace.
The latest: The Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded on Friday to Ales Bialiatski, a detained activist in Belarus, Russian human rights organization Memorial and Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties.
The death toll from Hurricane Ian surpassed 100 on Thursday, as Floridians continued to return home to the devastation left behind.
The big picture: The storm-related death count reached at least 101, eight days after Ian pummeled Florida's western coast before barreling through the Carolinas.
As Sydney experiences its wettest year since records began in 1858, widespread heavy rains left much of eastern Australia on flood alert Thursday.
The big picture: At least 20 people have died in Australia this year because of widespread flooding driven by climate change and the La Niña conditions present for a third-straight year in the Pacific, according to climate scientists.
Human-caused climate change made the drought conditions that gripped large portions of the Northern Hemisphere this past summer far more likely to occur, a new study found.
Why it matters: The study, published Wednesday, found human-caused global warming dramatically upped the odds of drought throughout the hemisphere outside of the tropics — making them at least 20 times more likely compared to the preindustrial era.
