Spatiotemporal patterns of individual and multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with power outages in the United States, 2018–2020

Vivian Do; Lauren B. Wilner; Nina M. Flores; Heather McBrien; Alexander J. Northrop; Joan A. Casey

doi:10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523

Abstract

In the United States, severe weather-driven power outages are increasing in frequency and duration, likely with health consequences. Previous studies examined individual severe weather events (e.g., heatwaves) and focused on large outages in metropolitan areas. Here, we described nationwide spatiotemporal patterns of individual (e.g., tropical cyclone alone) and simultaneous (e.g., tropical cyclone + anomalous heat) severe weather events co-occurring with 8+ hour outages. We used hourly county-level PowerOutage.us data from 2018–2020 to define 8+ hour outages as whenever the daily proportion of customers without power was ≥0.1% for ≥8 continuous hours. We conducted analyses at the daily and county (county-day) level and identified county-days with severe weather events, including anomalous cold, anomalous heat, anomalous precipitation, snowfall, tropical cyclones, and wildfire. Of 1,657 counties with reliable outage data, 1,205 (72.7%) experienced an 8+ hour outage co-occurring with an individual severe weather event, and 904 (54.6%) with multiple simultaneous severe weather events. Anomalous precipitation events co-occurring with outages were the most common, affecting 1,170 (70.6%) counties. These outages concentrated along the Gulf Coast, the Northeast, Michigan, and Southern California. Co-occurrence with anomalous heat happened the second most frequently, affecting 839 (50.6%) counties, mostly in Southeastern states. Among all county-days with a severe weather event, tropical cyclones–though rarer and primarily affecting the Eastern Seaboard–co-occurred with an 8+ hour outage 24% of the time. On the West Coast, wildfires were increasingly likely to co-occur with weather-related outages from 2018–2020. Among multiple simultaneous weather events, 8+ hour outages co-occurred with anomalous precipitation-anomalous heat on 1,155 county-days in 40 states, anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone on 705 county-days in 24 states, and anomalous cold-snowfall on 259 county-days in 27 states. Our results can help guide efforts to strengthen the electricity grid, prepare communities for multi-hazard events, and allocate resources for adaptation and recovery.

Citation: Do V, Wilner LB, Flores NM, McBrien H, Northrop AJ, Casey JA (2025) Spatiotemporal patterns of individual and multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with power outages in the United States, 2018–2020. PLOS Clim 4(1): e0000523. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523

Editor: Tarik Benmarhnia, University of California San Diego, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Received: August 1, 2024; Accepted: December 5, 2024; Published: January 22, 2025

Copyright: © 2025 Do et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Severe weather data are publicly available datasets described in the methods section. Power outage data are available for purchase from PowerOutage.us at https://PowerOutage.us/products. Minimal datasets, which were processed by authors and used to generate study figures, can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14076797.

Funding: This work was funded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) P30 ES009089 (JAC), 5T32ES007322-22 (VD), and P30ES007033 (JAC), the National Institute on Aging (NIA) grant RF1AG071024 (JAC), and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant F31 HL172608 (VD). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

From 2000–2023, weather caused 80% of large-scale power outages—those that affected over 50,000 customers or resulted in a 300-megawatt loss of power—in the United States (US) [1]. Severe weather-driven power outages often occur when severe weather physically damages energy infrastructure and service pathways used for distribution and delivery. For example, extreme heat can cause power lines to sag, sparking fires and damaging electrical wires. Tropical cyclones can uproot electrical poles or flood electrical substations. Extreme weather, such as cold spells, heat waves, and winter storms, can disrupt electrical generation and increase demand, heightening the likelihood of power outages [2, 3]. Climate change has increased the frequency of severe weather events, thus burdening energy supply systems [4] and raising the prevalence of severe weather and related outages [5].

Severe weather-driven power outages have several societal consequences, including economic costs and health risks. In 2021, Texas experienced a 10-day power outage partly caused by severe cold weather. The event resulted in economic losses estimated at $130 billion [6]. Beyond economic losses, co-occurring severe weather and power outages can damage human health. Power outages can cut power to air conditioners during heatwaves or heat pumps during cold weather, increasing health risks through exposure to extreme temperatures [7, 8]. Simulation studies found that co-occurring outages and heatwaves could lead to a doubling of heat-related death rates compared to heatwaves alone in Phoenix (Arizona), Atlanta (Georgia), Detroit (Michigan) [9, 10]. The 2021 Texas Power Crisis during extremely cold conditions was linked to increased hypothermia [11] and mortality [12]. Power outages co-occurring with extreme temperatures may also threaten the health of those in poorly insulated buildings [13]. Power outages co-occurring with thunderstorms have been linked to increased hospitalizations for cardiovascular [14] and respiratory [15, 16] conditions. Changes in ambient pollution, temperature, and humidity paired with increased physical and psychological demands during outages may increase cardiopulmonary stress, further exacerbating underlying health conditions [17]. During wildfire events, a power outage would prevent households from using air filtration, which could increase wildfire-related indoor air pollution [18, 19]. In the case of co-occurring severe weather events, the exogenous stressors inherent in outages may interact, amplifying health-related impacts.

Despite the potential impact of co-occurring severe weather events and power outages, studies characterizing them are limited. Prior work on co-occurring severe weather events often excluded power outages [20, 21], and studies that included power outages typically focused on power outages with a single severe weather event in specific cities [7, 9, 22, 23]. Although there are studies quantifying exposure to co-occurring severe weather events and electrical infrastructure, they predicted future exposure risk [24, 25] rather than using historical data to characterize past co-exposure. While Mukherjee et al. evaluated several severe weather types in combination (e.g., heatwaves, hurricanes, winter storms, thunderstorms) and their co-occurrence with power outages, these observations were limited to large-scale outages (i.e., outages that affected 50,000+ customers or had 300-megawatt power loss) [26]. Similarly, Climate Central described state-level estimates for severe weather causing large-scale outages [1]. To date, few studies [27, 28] have included co-occurring severe weather events and smaller-scale power outages (e.g., outages affecting <50,000 customers or having less than a 300-megawatt power loss) across a wide geographic scope. No study to our knowledge has leveraged historical data to simultaneously examine multiple types of severe weather events co-occurring with small-scale outages at a sub-state level across the U.S.

Multiple (2+) simultaneous severe weather events appear to drastically increase the chances of a power outage. For example, in New York, compared to days with no severe weather, 8+ hour outages were 9 times more prevalent during extreme heat alone, 30 times more prevalent during precipitation, but 391 times more prevalent during a heat and heavy precipitation event [28]. This trend was also observed nationally. In a 2018–2020 nationwide study, 8+ hour outages were 11 times more common during co-occurring heavy precipitation and anomalous cold than heavy precipitation alone (4.7 times) or anomalous cold alone (0.9 times) [27]. However, neither of these studies examined the spatial distribution of power outages co-occurring with 2+ severe weather events. Mapping the spatial distribution of co-occurring severe weather events and outages is essential for shaping targeted interventions and preparedness strategies. Despite the documented health impacts of small-scale outages [29, 30], the spatiotemporal co-occurrence of severe weather events and small-scale outages is understudied compared to large-scale outages. It is crucial to investigate where and when all multi-severe weather events and 8+ hour power outages co-occur.

In this county-level US nationwide study, we characterized the spatial and geographic patterns of 8+ hour power outages co-occurring with (1) individual severe weather events and (2) multiple (i.e., 2+) simultaneous severe weather events. We leveraged 2018–2020 hourly county-level power outage data and focused on anomalous cold, anomalous heat, anomalous precipitation, snowfall, tropical cyclones, and wildfire. Understanding spatiotemporal co-occurrence patterns can inform future energy policy to strengthen the energy grid, resilience strategies to protect human health, and resource allocation for preparedness.

Methods

Power outages data and definition

We used 2018–2020 PowerOutage.us data on electrical customers without power for US sub-counties (e.g., town, city) at 10-minute increments using APIs. An electrical customer can be a residence, such as a single-family unit, or a business, such as a store. We aggregated data to the county and hourly level as the average count of customers without power [27]. We only included counties with reliable data, defined as having ≥50% coverage of county-wide electrical customers and ≥50% reporting for the full 3-year period in the study. For customer coverage, we calculated the percent of electrical customers tracked by PowerOutage.us for each county, which was the total electrical customers recorded in the PowerOutage.us data over the total electrical customers estimated using data from the Energy Information Administration 861 forms [31]. Using the 861 forms, we allocated the total customers served in a state to counties based on the proportions of households and businesses in each county, as reported in the census [27]. We also calculated the percent of hours tracked in each county by PowerOutage.us with API entries for each county from 2018–2020. If a county’s percent of electrical customers covered and hours with outage data reported together were ≥50%, then we classified the county to have reliable data and included it in our study, as previously described [27].

Because longer-duration power outages may have societal and health implications, we focused our analyses on power outages lasting 8+ hours, as done previously [27]. We defined outages lasting 8+ hours to be when the percent of customers without power in a county-hour exceeded 0.1% for at least 8 consecutive hours. To calculate the percent of customers without power for every county-hour, we divided the customers without power reported from PowerOutage.us by the total customers served in that county based on the 861 forms and multiplied by 100. We selected an 8-hour period because this duration may be a cut point for health consequences such as the battery life for electricity-dependent durable medical equipment [32]. Our unit of analysis was a county-day, which is a day in a county. For example, a single county would contribute 365 county-days in a year. Five counties, similarly, would contribute 5*365 = 1825 county-days in our analyses. We identified county-days with an 8+ hour power outage that happened on the same day as individual or multiple severe weather events. To consider more severe 8+ hour outages affecting more customers, we additionally increased the cut point for customers without power from 0.1% to 4.0%. The 4.0% cut point corresponded to the 99^th percentile of customers without power among counties with reliable data. Our main power outage definition was 8+ hour outages where at least 0.1% of customers were without power, and our secondary power outage definition was 8+ hour outages where at least 4.0% of customers were without power.

Individual severe weather events

We gathered data on anomalous cold, anomalous heat, anomalous precipitation, snowfall, tropical cyclones, and wildfire, aggregating each severe weather event type to the county-day level [27]. If county i on day j experienced a severe weather event, then we considered county-day_ij to be exposed to that specific severe weather event. For anomalous cold, heat, and precipitation, we leveraged Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model estimates reported daily at 30 arc-seconds (~1 km) [33]. Our criteria to identify anomalous cold and anomalous heat required a county-day to meet both an absolute and relative temperature definition. High and low absolute temperatures impact infrastructure [34–36] and human physiology [37–40] while exceeding a relative temperature, atypical temperatures in a county, may impact residents not expecting such heat or cold. We defined anomalous cold when two conditions were met: (1) the average county-daily temperature fell below 0°C (absolute definition), and (2) the average county-daily temperature fell below the 15^th percentile of historical county weekly averages from 1981–2010 (relative definition) [27]. Similarly, we defined anomalous heat as when two conditions were met: (1) the average county-daily temperature exceeded 24°C (absolute definition based on power line impacts [35]), and (2) he average county-daily temperature exceeded the 85^th percentile of historical county weekly averages from 1981–2010 (relative definition). Anomalous precipitation was defined as when precipitation surpassed the county-weekly average 85^th percentile of historical weekly averages from 1981–2010. Using the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship project, we identified county-days exposed to a tropical cyclone when counties were within 100km of the cyclonic path when the cyclone was active [41]. This distance-based exposure classification did not rely on quantity of precipitation. For snowfall, we extracted 24-hour accumulation data from the National Gridded Snowfall Estimates and defined exposure as when there was ≥ 1” snow in a 24-hour county-day [42]. For wildfires, we used data from the National Interagency Fire Center, and a county-day was considered exposed when it overlapped with a ≥ 1 km² actively burning wildfire at any point of the day [43].

Co-occurring individual severe weather and 8+ hour power outage events

First, we identified individual weather events that co-occurred with 8+ hour power outages. We did this by separately identifying the county-days with a severe weather event and the county-days with an 8+ hour power outage. If county i on day j experienced an individual severe weather event and an 8+ hour power outage, then we consider county-day ij to be exposed to co-occurring individual severe weather event and an 8+ hour outage. An individual severe weather event that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage does not mean that the individual severe weather event caused the 8+ hour power outage. Additionally, these individual severe weather events were not necessarily isolated events. For example, a county-day could face an 8+ hour power outage, anomalous heat, and a tropical cyclone. In the individual hazard analysis, we would consider that county-day exposed to two unique severe weather events: (1) anomalous heat with an 8+ hour outage, and (2) tropical cyclone with an 8+ hour outage. This information can be used to guide counties and regions to better prepare for the most common individual severe weather events that co-occur with 8+ hour power outages. Our co-occurrence metric indicates that a severe weather event and an 8+ hour outage took place in the same county and day. This means that when we classified a county-day as experiencing a co-occurring severe weather event and an 8+ hour power outage, the events may have happened in different parts of the county and different parts of the day.

Co-occurring multiple (2+) severe weather and 8+ hour power outage events

In a second analysis, we identified county-days where multiple (2+) simultaneous severe weather events co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage. If county i on day j experienced multiple severe weather events and an 8+ hour power outage, then we considered county-day_ij to be exposed to co-occurring multiple severe weather events and an 8+ hour outage. A multiple simultaneous severe weather event that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage does not mean that the multiple simultaneous severe weather event caused the 8+ hour power outage. Continuing our previous example, an anomalous heat event and a tropical cyclone that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage would be identified as part of a multiple simultaneous severe weather co-occurrence. We describe the most common simultaneous severe weather events and those that co-occurred with 8+ hour power outages. Our co-occurrence metric indicates that multiple severe weather events and an 8+ hour outage took place in the same county and day. This means that when each of these events may have happened in different parts of the county and different parts of the day.

Statistical analysis

We conducted descriptive analyses on co-occurring severe weather events and 8+ hour power outages by characterizing their spatiotemporal distribution. We quantified co-occurring individual severe weather and 8+ hour power outage events in several domains: spatially at the county level, on a relative scale considering various severe weather events, and temporally by season. For our seasonal analysis, we defined warm months to be May–September and cool months to be October–April [44]. We calculated the probability of an 8+ hour outage co-occurring with (1) an individual severe weather event and (2) a multiple simultaneous severe weather event (Equation 1). The numerator was the number of county-days with an 8+ hour power outage co-occurring with a severe weather type and the denominator was the number of county-days with the severe weather type. We additionally considered the probability of an 8+ hour power outage given no severe weather events.

Equation 1. Probability of an 8+ hour power outage co-occurring with severe weather type i

We also described co-occurring simultaneous multiple (2+) severe weather types and 8+ hour power outages at the state level over the study period. Only observed combinations of severe weather events were included in the study. We ran all analyses with 8+ hour outages using the 0.1% customer cut point (i.e., our main power outage definition) and the 4.0% customer cut point (i.e., our secondary power outage definition). Analyses were conducted in R Version 2023.12.1+402 (2023.12.1+402). Code used for this analysis is available on GitHub (https://github.com/viviando/power_outage-severe_weather-coocurrence).

Results

We present results for analyses with 8+ hour outages using the 0.1% customer cut point. Results on 8+ hour outages using the 4.0% customer cut point were similar and are available in the supplement.

Study characteristics

This study consisted of 1,657 contiguous US counties (containing 156,770,930 electrical customers) with 3 years of reliable power outage data from 2018–2020 (1,799,208 total county-days) (S1 Fig). During the study period, the most frequent severe weather type was anomalous precipitation (300,409 [16.7%] county-days), followed by anomalous heat (152,353 [8.5%] county-days), anomalous cold (66,927 [3.7%] county-days), snowfall (32,759 [1.8%] county-days), wildfire (7,307 [0.4%] county-days), and tropical cyclone (3,513 [0.2%] county-days) (Table 1). 8+ hour power outages were also common, occurring on 28,259 (1.6%) county-days, of which 59.3% co-occurred with a severe weather event. From 2018–2020, most counties (n = 1,205 [72.7%] containing 116,154,002 electrical customers) experienced at least one day when an individual severe weather event co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage, and 904 counties (54.6%; 97,752,077 electrical customers) experienced multiple simultaneous severe weather events that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage. In 21 states, at least 80% of counties with reliable power outage data had a day that co-occurred with an individual severe weather event. In 9 states (DE, AL, MI, LA, MS, NH, GA, SC, VT), at least 80% of counties with reliable power outage data had a day that co-occurred with multiple simultaneous severe weather events (S1 Table).

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Table 1. Summary of individual severe weather events and probability of an 8+ hour power outage co-occurring on the same county-day from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 1,657 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data (1,799,208 total county-days). The individual severe weather events were not necessarily isolated events and could have also co-occurred with another severe weather event.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.t001

Co-occurring individual severe weather and 8+ hour power outage events

Co-occurrence of individual severe weather and 8+ hour power outages varied geographically by severe weather type. Anomalous precipitation events co-occurring with outages were the most common, affecting 1,170 (70.6%) counties, and these events concentrated along the Gulf Coast, Northeast, Michigan, and counties with data in Southern California (Fig 1, S2 Table). Co-occurrence with anomalous heat occurred the second most frequently, affecting 839 (50.6%) counties, mostly in Southeastern states such as Louisiana. Snowfall co-occurring with 8+ hour power outages impacted 492 (29.7%) counties. These counties were concentrated in the Northeast, particularly Maine, and many West Coast counties. Tropical cyclones co-occurring with 8+ hour power outages affected 459 counties (27.7%) with a distinct geographic pattern, affecting counties along the Eastern Seaboard. Anomalous cold-8+ hour outages impacted 401 (24.2%) counties. These were similar counties as those affected by snowfall-outages in the Northeast and West Coast. Lastly, co-occurrence of wildfires and 8+ hour power outages happened in 25 (1.5%) counties. Such co-occurrence largely happened on the West Coast. Using the higher 4.0% customer cut point to define outages, the geographic variation of severe weather types co-occurring with 8+ hour outages were similar (S2 Fig).

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Fig 1. Cumulative county-days of individual severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 1,657 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data (1,799,208 total county-days). The maps on the left share a common legend, and the maps on the right share a second common legend. White areas were excluded from the study because they lacked 3 years of reliable data. The individual severe weather events were not necessarily isolated events and could have also co-occurred with another severe weather event. Basemaps from the U.S. Census Bureau (https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.2018.html#list-tab-790442341).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.g001

We found that when a county-day had tropical cyclone exposure, the probability of an 8+ hour power outage co-occurring was 0.24, much higher than any other individual weather type (Table 1). Comparatively, the second-ranking probability of an 8+ hour power outage given snowfall was 0.05.

While anomalous precipitation was the most common individual severe weather event to co-occur with 8+ hour power outages in most states (Fig 2), we observed geographic and yearly variations in predominant severe weather types. Snowfall frequently co-occurred with 8+ hour power outages in the Northeast (especially Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine), Mountain West, and West Coast. More varied severe weather events co-occurred with 8+ hour power outages in Western states. Over the 3-year period, we noted a suggestive upward trend in the proportion of wildfires co-occurring with power outages relative to other severe weather events in California (2018: 24%, 2019: 29%, 2020: 28%), Oregon (2018: 10%, 2019: 0%, 2020: 34%), and Washington (2018: 9%, 2019: 0%, 2020: 14%). Although outages using the 4.0% cut point overall exhibited similar geographic and yearly variations, tropical cyclones co-occurred more frequently relative to other severe weather types (S3 Fig).

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Fig 2. County-days during which a specific severe weather event co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage over the total number of county-days for which any severe weather event co-occurred with a power outage, by state and year.

Results are on the 1,205 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data and at least one co-occurring individual severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage (16,757 total county-days). Because we only included counties with 3 years of reliable data and at least one severe weather-power outage co-occurrence, some state-years lacked any events (e.g., North Dakota in 2018 and 2019).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.g002

Severe weather types co-occurring with 8+ hour power outages differed by warm (May—September) versus cold (October—April) season. Co-occurring anomalous precipitation and 8+ hour power outages were common year-round across the Midwest, Northeast, and South. Cooler months saw more co-occurring anomalous cold, anomalous precipitation, and snowfall with 8+ hour power outages, while co-occurring anomalous heat predominated in summer months (Fig 3). Regional and seasonal trends were similar for outages affecting at least 4.0% of customers (S4 Fig).

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Fig 3. Cumulative days of severe weather types co-occurring with an 8+ hour outage by warm versus cool season in US counties from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 1,205 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data and at least one co-occurring individual severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage (16,757 total county-days). Warm season refers to May–September, and cool season refers to October–April.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.g003

Co-occurring multiple (2+) severe weather events and 8+ hour power outages

Among counties with any severe weather-outage co-occurrence, over half (904, 54.6%) also experienced multiple (2+) simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage from 2018–2020. Typically two, but occasionally three, simultaneous severe weather events co-occurred with 8+ hour power outages (Fig 4). Outages affecting at least 4.0% of customers co-occurred most with anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone, often in Gulf Coast states (S5 Fig). Forty-five states faced more than one type of multiple severe weather event that co-occurred with an 8+ hour outage. California and Georgia experienced the most different types of multiple simultaneous weather that co-occurred with an 8+ hour outage (i.e., 6 types of multiple simultaneous weather). Across the Midwest, Northeast, and South, anomalous heat frequently paired with anomalous precipitation to co-occur with 8+ hour outages. Anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone often co-occurred with 8+ hour outages in the South. In the West, anomalous cold-snowfall dominated (Fig 5). For more severe outages affecting at least 4.0% of customers, anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone was the most common severe weather combination for the Northeast and South. For the Midwest and West, anomalous heat-anomalous precipitation and anomalous cold-snowfall, respectively, remained the predominant co-occurring severe weather combinations (S6 Fig).

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Fig 4. Cumulative county-days of multiple (2+) simultaneous severe weather events that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage by US state from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 904 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data and at least one co-occurring multiple simultaneous severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage (2,389 total county-days). The left-most column reports total state-level county-days of multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage. The first row reports total county-days for multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage. The x-axis is ordered from most (left) to least (right) frequent co-occurring simultaneous severe weather event types across all states.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.g004

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Fig 5. Frequency of multiple simultaneous severe weather event types that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage by US census region from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 904 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data and at least one co-occurring multiple simultaneous severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage (2,389 total county-days). The perimeter of the circle is like a pie chart. The whole pie represents all county-outage-days exposed to multiple simultaneous severe weather events in our study. The colors around the perimeter indicate the proportion and count of county-outage-days exposed to each type of multiple simultaneous severe weather event. From the bottom right counter-clockwise, the perimeter highlighted in red indexes county-outage-days exposed to anomalous heat, purple indicates anomalous precipitation, pink indicates tropical cyclone, blue indicates snowfall, orange indicates wildfire, and navy indicates anomalous cold. The shaded arcs inside the circle indicate the prevalence of two severe weather events happening simultaneously with an 8+ hour outage. For multiple weather events with 3 types of severe weather co-occurring with an 8+ power outage, we included each unique pair as separate connections. As an example, a county-day with an 8+ hour outage and simultaneous anomalous heat, anomalous precipitation, and tropical cyclone would contribute to the count of county-outage-days for each of anomalous heat-anomalous precipitation, anomalous heat-tropical cyclone, and anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.g005

From 2018–2020, 8+ hour power outages co-occurred with simultaneous anomalous precipitation and anomalous heat on 1,155 county-days in 40 states, anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone on 705 county-days in 24 states, and anomalous cold-snowfall on 259 county-days in 27 states. Among multiple simultaneous weather events, anomalous precipitation-anomalous heat co-occurring with 8+ hour outages was the most frequent combination nationally; however, the most frequent combination varied by state (S3 Table). For example, the pairing of anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone led in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Despite a smaller geographic range, 9 states experienced wildfire-involved multi-event power outages, with a total of 26 county-days. Though rare, we observed unexpected co-occurrence combinations of severe weather such as anomalous cold-wildfire and snowfall-wildfire on the same county-days. The most common triple weather event, anomalous heat-anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone, occurred with an 8+ hour outage on 93 county-days, 49 of which were in Georgia.

When multiple simultaneous weather events took place, the probability of an outage was often higher than for individual weather events. For example, when a county-day faced anomalous heat-anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone, the probability of a co-occurring 8+ hour power outage was 0.37 (Table 2). For anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone, the probability of an 8+ hour outage was 0.26. Other combinations were generally associated with outage probabilities between 0 and 0.07.

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Table 2. Summary of multiple simultaneous severe weather events and probability of an 8+ hour power outage co-occurring on the same county-day from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 1,657 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data (1,799,208 total county-days). Proportion of county-days with multiple simultaneous severe weather events are relative to 1,799,208 county-days in the study. Only multiple simultaneous severe weather combinations observed in the data are presented.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.t002

Discussion

In this national analysis spanning 1,657 contiguous US counties from 2018–2020, we found that 72.7% of counties experienced an individual severe weather event co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage, and 54.6% of counties endured multiple simultaneous weather events with an 8+ hour power outage. Climate change and age-related grid failure continue to cause more weather-related outages. Prior work has reported overall patterns in power outages and severe weather-related outages [1, 27] but has not described the spatiotemporal distribution of where and when weather events co-occurred with power outages. Such knowledge can enable targeted preparedness and investment strategies.

Precipitation and anomalous heat co-occurred most with 8+ hour power outages. Our findings are consistent with prior work documenting rain-related weather as the biggest driver in larger power outages [1, 28]. In a 2000–2023 study on large power outages, Climate Central reported winter weather (i.e., snow, ice) as the second largest driver of power outages, while anomalous heat held the second-ranking spot in our analysis. Differences could have arisen because our study covered 2018–2020, which likely captured warmer days given climate change-driven increasing temperatures. Future research could examine various definitions of extreme temperatures in relation to the risk of power outages, infrastructure, and adverse health outcomes. The Climate Central study also identified causes, while ours focused on co-occurrence, which could result in differences. However, despite the high prevalence of co-occurrence with anomalous precipitation and anomalous heat, tropical cyclones–though rarer–were most likely to co-occur with 8+ hour power outages. We found that during 24% of tropical cyclone county-days, an 8+ hour power outage co-occurred, and when simultaneous tropical cyclone-heat-precipitation took place, 8+ hour outages co-occurred 37% of the time. These results support prior work on tropical cyclones as a major cause of power outages [45, 46].

Tropical cyclones have devastating impacts on population health, and prior studies suggest that power outages during such events can also increase health consequences. Previous US studies observed that tropical cyclones were associated with increased excess deaths [47, 48] and hospitalizations [48, 49] with effects being worse for high-poverty [49] and socially vulnerable areas [47]. Power outages could be an indirect pathway between tropical cyclones and health outcomes [50]. For example, power outages may disrupt critical at-home medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators, suctioning devices, and home ventilators. They may also make temperature-controlling units (e.g., air conditioners and fans) unusable. Additionally, outages likely increase the likelihood of injuries [29] due to generator use [51, 52], natural gas use, and lack of indoor lighting [8]. When power outages co-occur with tropical cyclones, the disaster conditions created by the tropical cyclone may make dealing with injuries or the consequences of heat or medical equipment failure impossible, increasing hospitalizations. A New York State study found that about half the effects of major storms, which included tropical cyclones, on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease could be attributed to power outages [53]. Therefore, power outages may be an important mediator in the relationship between tropical cyclones and population health.

Our results showed that the incidence of 8+ power outages co-occurring with wildfires increased over the study period on the West Coast. As wildfires become more frequent and severe with climate change [54], they heighten the likelihood of power outages by damaging the electrical grid (e.g., burning electrical poles) [55] or prompting proactive responses, such as public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) [56, 57]. Although there is a robust literature on risk management for wildfires [58] and resilience strategies for power outages [57, 59, 60], studies documenting the co-occurrence of wildfires and power outages are limited. In a national 2000–2016 study assessing the cause of major power outages, Mukherjee et al. combined heatwaves and wildfires into one category, making it difficult to estimate the burden of wildfire-related power outages [26]. By creating a separate category for wildfire, we identified a potentially increasing trend of co-occurring wildfires and outages on the West Coast. Recognizing this trend is crucial to future disaster preparedness and mitigation strategies, especially when balancing the benefits and drawbacks of wildfire-related PSPS.

This study had several limitations. We relied on separate datasets for severe weather events and 8+ hour power outages. Consequently, we could not determine if severe weather definitively caused 8+ hour power outages or simply co-occurred with them. In addition, we defined co-occurrence based on severe weather and 8+ hour outages happening on the same day, which likely undercounted the prevalence of outages caused by severe weather since outages can last for multiple days following a severe weather event [61]. In a 2024 Climate Central report, investigators had data from utility companies documenting the causes of large outages [1]. Future studies could use this Climate Central dataset to evaluate multiple simultaneous severe weather events as causal drivers of large-scale outages and consider outages that do not co-occur with severe weather events but are caused by them and take place in the subsequent days. Even though we could not determine causality, characterizing where and when severe weather and 8+ hour power outages co-occur is still important since co-occurring severe weather and power outages have societal and health consequences [14, 16, 62]. Outages co-occurring with extreme heat or tropical cyclones may have more severe health consequences than outages during fair weather. While one of the first to characterize the co-occurrence of severe weather and power outages nationally [26, 27], our study included only 3 years of data and thus does not provide a comprehensive, long-term picture of severe weather events and power outages, missing events such as Hurricane Ida [46]. Accessible and highly resolved spatiotemporal data on power outages is crucial for advancing our understanding of where and when co-occurrence happens. Lastly, to increase reliability of results, we removed counties without 3 years of reliable data. We also have no information on counties missing all utility data. These counties were most often in the Southwest and Mountain West. As such, our findings may not generalize to these regions. To enhance knowledge on severe weather patterns and power outages in these areas, future studies should seek and leverage data in these regions (i.e., including data from smaller electricity collectives).

Our study contributes to the sparse literature examining severe weather events that co-occur with power outages. Co-occurring severe weather events and power outages–which took place in nearly 75% of counties with reliable power outage data–could lead to complex multi-hazard disasters. Understanding that 8+ power outages most commonly co-occur with anomalous precipitation, most likely co-occur with tropical cyclones, and concentrate in certain parts of the US is crucial for mitigation, preparedness, and response tactics. Moreover, recognizing that power outages also co-occur with 2+ simultaneous severe weather events is important for novel response strategies to protect population health [63, 64]. Further research is required to examine the effects of these multi-hazard exposures on human health. Simulations of different combinations in different locations will be useful for a coordinated preparedness campaign and relief effort [9, 25, 65]. In a changing climate, research on co-occurring severe weather events and power outages is key for efficiently shaping preparedness and mitigation strategies to minimize related societal consequences.

Supporting information

S1 Table. Cumulative reliable counties per state, reliable counties with an individual severe weather event co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage, and reliable counties with multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring 8+ hour power outage from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 1,657 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data (1,799,208 total county-days). The individual severe weather events were not necessarily isolated events and could have also co-occurred with another severe weather event. 8+ hour outages defined using the 0.1% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s001

(PDF)

S2 Table. The predominant individual severe weather event co-occurring with 8+ hour power outage, by state from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 1,205 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data and at least one co-occurring individual severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage (16,757 total county-days). States with more than one multiple simultaneous severe weather type listed means that all listed combinations were equally the most common. 8+ hour outages defined using the 0.1% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s002

(PDF)

S3 Table. The predominant multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with 8+ hour power outage, by state from 2018–2020.

Results are on the 904 counties with 3 years of reliable power outage data and at least one co-occurring multiple simultaneous severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage (2,389 total county-days). States with more than one multiple simultaneous severe weather type listed means that all listed combinations were equally the most common. 8+ hour outages defined using the 0.1% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s003

(PDF)

S1 Fig. Flowchart depicting inclusion in the individual and multiple simultaneous severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage analyses, 2018–2020.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s004

(TIFF)

S2 Fig. Cumulative county-days of individual severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage from 2018–2020.

The maps on the left share a common legend, and the maps on the right share a second common legend. White areas were excluded from the study because they lacked 3 years of reliable data. The individual severe weather events were not necessarily isolated events and could have also co-occurred with another severe weather event. 8+ hour outages defined using the 4.0% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s005

(TIFF)

S3 Fig. County-days during which a specific severe weather event co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage over the total number of county-days for which any severe weather event co-occurred with a power outage, by state and year.

Because we only included counties with 3 years of reliable data and at least one severe weather-power outage co-occurrence, some state-years lacked any events (e.g., North Dakota in 2018, 2019, and 2020). 8+ hour outages defined using the 4.0% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s006

(TIFF)

S4 Fig. Cumulative days of severe weather types co-occurring with an 8+ hour outage by warm versus cool season in US counties from 2018–2020.

Warm season refers to May–September, and cool season refers to October–April. 8+ hour outages defined using the 4.0% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s007

(TIFF)

S5 Fig. Cumulative county-days of multiple (2+) simultaneous severe weather events that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage by US state from 2018–2020.

The left-most column reports total state-level county-days of multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage. The first row reports total county-days for multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage. The x-axis is ordered from most (left) to least (right) frequent co-occurring simultaneous severe weather event types across all states. 8+ hour outages defined using the 4.0% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s008

(TIFF)

S6 Fig. Frequency of multiple simultaneous severe weather event types that co-occurred with a power outage by US census region from 2018–2020.

The perimeter of the circle is like a pie chart. The whole pie represents all county-outage-days exposed to multiple simultaneous severe weather events in our study. The colors around the perimeter indicate the proportion and count of county-outage-days exposed to each type of multiple simultaneous severe weather event. From the bottom right counter-clockwise, the perimeter highlighted in red indexes county-outage-days exposed to anomalous heat, purple indicates anomalous precipitation, pink indicates tropical cyclone, blue indicates snowfall, orange indicates wildfire, and navy indicates anomalous cold. The shaded arcs inside the circle indicate the prevalence of two severe weather events happening simultaneously with an 8+ hour outage. For multiple weather events with 3 types of severe weather co-occurring with an 8+ power outage, we included each unique pair as separate connections. As an example, a county-day with an 8+ hour outage and simultaneous anomalous heat, anomalous precipitation, and tropical cyclone would contribute to the count of county- outage-days for each of anomalous heat-anomalous precipitation, anomalous heat-tropical cyclone, and anomalous precipitation-tropical cyclone. 8+ hour outages defined using the 4.0% customer cut point.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000523.s009

(TIFF)

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Figures

Abstract

Introduction

Methods

Power outages data and definition

Individual severe weather events

Co-occurring individual severe weather and 8+ hour power outage events

Co-occurring multiple (2+) severe weather and 8+ hour power outage events

Statistical analysis

Equation 1. Probability of an 8+ hour power outage co-occurring with severe weather type i

Results

Study characteristics

Co-occurring individual severe weather and 8+ hour power outage events

Co-occurring multiple (2+) severe weather events and 8+ hour power outages

Discussion

Supporting information

S1 Table. Cumulative reliable counties per state, reliable counties with an individual severe weather event co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage, and reliable counties with multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring 8+ hour power outage from 2018–2020.

S2 Table. The predominant individual severe weather event co-occurring with 8+ hour power outage, by state from 2018–2020.

S3 Table. The predominant multiple simultaneous severe weather events co-occurring with 8+ hour power outage, by state from 2018–2020.

S1 Fig. Flowchart depicting inclusion in the individual and multiple simultaneous severe weather event and 8+ hour power outage analyses, 2018–2020.

S2 Fig. Cumulative county-days of individual severe weather events co-occurring with an 8+ hour power outage from 2018–2020.

S3 Fig. County-days during which a specific severe weather event co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage over the total number of county-days for which any severe weather event co-occurred with a power outage, by state and year.

S4 Fig. Cumulative days of severe weather types co-occurring with an 8+ hour outage by warm versus cool season in US counties from 2018–2020.

S5 Fig. Cumulative county-days of multiple (2+) simultaneous severe weather events that co-occurred with an 8+ hour power outage by US state from 2018–2020.

S6 Fig. Frequency of multiple simultaneous severe weather event types that co-occurred with a power outage by US census region from 2018–2020.

References