Winter storm likely to cost US economy billions, experts sharply divided

A major winter storm that grounded 11,400 flights, left hundreds of thousands without power, and killed at least 25 people across much of the American East is likely to cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars, but economists sharply disagree over how much. AccuWeather announced a preliminary estimate of $105 billion to $115 billion in damage, drawing immediate pushback from other experts who say the number is far too high and lacks sufficient detail.

The disagreement reflects a fundamental challenge in assessing winter-weather disasters: unlike hurricanes and floods, which cause visible damage to buildings and infrastructure, ice storms’ costs are largely indirect — lost business opportunities, disrupted supply chains, canceled travel — and difficult to quantify with precision.

The Damage Tally

The storm’s toll extends across multiple sectors. Ice toppled electrical lines, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. Trees snapped under the weight of ice. Cars sustained damage. Hundreds of thousands of canceled flights have disrupted travel, and it will take time to fully reboot air travel and restore electrical service to affected areas.

The Cost Question

Economists are divided on what all this will ultimately cost. Most economists, meteorologists and disaster experts say it’s too early to put a legitimate estimate on the weekend’s damage and the week of subfreezing temperatures that followed.

But AccuWeather, the private forecasting company, did not wait. The firm announced a preliminary estimate of $105 billion to $115 billion — which Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s Chief Meteorologist, said reflects disruptions to commerce and power outages. “Some businesses are going to be shut down for days or a week or more,” Porter told the Associated Press at the annual American Meteorological Society convention.

The estimate landed hard. Six other experts scoffed at the figure as far too high and insufficiently detailed.

Adam Smith, a senior climate impact scientist at Climate Central who formerly ran NOAA’s billion-dollar weather disaster list, said the storm will easily cost multiple billions of dollars, making it the country’s first billion-dollar weather disaster of 2026. But Smith said it is nowhere near as costly as AccuWeather suggests. He pointed to the company’s track record: AccuWeather’s initial estimate for the Los Angeles wildfires was $250 billion, while climate, risk and insurance groups that conducted extensive analysis all concluded the real amount was around $60 billion.

AccuWeather’s higher estimates account for what Porter called the “bigger picture” of indirect and long-term costs, including business supply chain disruptions and medical costs. Most other estimates take a narrower view, Porter said, pointing out that NOAA’s billion-dollar disaster page lists factors not considered — and notes that NOAA’s estimates “should be considered conservative with respect to what is truly lost.”

Jacob Fooks, a research economist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University, said researchers don’t have consensus, but most estimates suggest severe weather events collectively cut gross domestic product by 0.5 percent to 2 percent annually — a substantial impact when applied economy-wide.

Why Winter Storms Are Hard to Cost

The disagreement reflects a structural challenge in pricing winter disasters. As Jacob Fooks of Colorado State University notes, “Events like this storm highlight just how interconnected our economy is with weather conditions. When major transportation hubs shut down or power grids fail, the cascading effects ripple through supply chains and business operations across multiple sectors simultaneously.”

Hurricanes, floods and fires destroy buildings and infrastructure — losses insurers can quantify and pay out. Winter storms’ damage is different. “When we talk about billion dollar damage from hurricanes, we’re basically talking about insurable losses,” said Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist. “People generally aren’t remunerated for bad weather.”

Much of a winter storm’s economic hit comes from lost opportunity: the business not conducted, the flight not taken, the construction work halted. Those losses are real but amorphous and harder to quantify than a collapsed building.

There is a counterpoint: winter storms can create economic winners. Hardware stores sell more shovels and salt. Grocery stores sell more food. Research has documented this pattern. But Fooks said losses from the storm far outstrip those gains — with costs including disruption of supply chains and business operations, and response expenses for emergency managers and departments of transportation.

Climate and the Future

Whether costs are calculated narrowly or broadly, one fact stands: they are adding up. Porter said that as climate warms, costly weather disasters are happening “at an increasing frequency and impact around the world. This is just the latest example.”