“The four (4) Great Judgments that Allah (God) promises to destroy America with are now coming upon her … hail, snow, drought, earthquake. Allah (God) has reserved His treasures of snow and ice to be used against the wicked country America in the day of battle and war. These are some of Allah’s (God’s) weapons, the storms that we see going on.” —The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, “The Fall of America,” Chapter 34
In the United States, 2024 has been a year of billion-dollar weather disasters. Through early November there were 24 confirmed weather and climate events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect the United States.
These events included 17 severe storms, including tornadoes, hail and high wind damage, four hurricanes, one wildfire event in New Mexico, and two winter storms.
Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 418 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted, according to Adam Smith, applied climatologist with the Adam Smith Climate Science and Services Division of the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
“The total cost of these 24 events exceeds $61 billion. However, this year-to-date total does not include Hurricanes Helene or Milton, which may add another $100 billion or more to the 2024 costs total,” Mr. Smith told The Final Call.
NCEI’s final 2024 report will be published in early January, but 2024 has been another very active one, featuring a high frequency, high cost, and diversity of extreme events that affect people’s lives and livelihoods, he stated.
He stated that 2024 is the fifth consecutive year in which 18 or more separate billion-dollar disaster events have impacted the U.S., marking a consistent pattern. “Given that 2023 and 2024 were head and shoulders above the other years in terms of the number of disasters, it would not be unreasonable to expect another active year in 2025,” he said.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, for decades, warned the nations of the Earth, specifically America, that the wrath of Allah (God) was imminent due to her wickedness perpetrated against the Black man and woman of America.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught that God would use the forces of nature to pummel and punish America. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, his National Representative, has echoed his teacher’s warnings for decades and declaring, “watch the weather.”
“Allah (God) has a way of showing His disapproval to those who are wise enough to read the signs. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Act, was enacted to finance emergencies and recoveries from national disasters.
Natural disasters are God’s way of indicating his displeasure and are a sign of impending doom,” wrote Minister Farrakhan in his 1993 book, “A Torchlight for America.”
“FEMA doesn’t have enough money to pay for the earthquakes that hit San Francisco during the World Series a few years ago. FEMA does not have enough money to pay for Hurricane Hugo, Cyclone Omar, the hurricanes in Hawaii, the tornadoes that have torn up Tampa Bay, and Hurricane Andrew. All of these catastrophes increase the budget deficit,” wrote Minister Farrakhan.
Since the beginning of the year, these forces have impacted the country. On January 9, more than three million people in Florida were under tornado watches issued by the Storm Prediction Center. Fourteen tornadoes were reported across Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, causing significant damage and prompting rescues in Florida’s panhandle.
In early February, back-to-back atmospheric rivers drenched California in rain, snow, over 100 mph winds, and hail, claiming nine lives and causing approximately $11 billion in damages. “Mother Nature” and climate change were blamed for what occurred in just a matter of five days.
But the hard truth about the extreme weather that slammed the Golden State is that three out of God’s “Four Great Judgments”—rain, hail, and snow—had visited California. The fourth judgment, earthquakes, struck later in the year.
However, in February, the damages resulted in 475 mudslides, 390 fallen trees, increased volume in traffic collisions, a dozen structure fires, and 441 potholes in the City of Los Angeles as of Feb. 6. The atmospheric river storm also brought a large amount of snow to the Sierra, causing the state’s snowpack to rise by 20 percent to 72 percent of the yearly average.
In one of the storms that placed 1.4 million people in the L.A. area under flash flood warning and shut off power for more than one million people across the state, multi-million homes were threatened with mud, boulders and debris-turned projectiles, and floodwater caused temporary overloads to sewers that resulted in sewage overflowing onto streets at 10 locations.
Many hoped and prayed that earthquakes, the fourth judgment, did not follow. However, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake rattled New York on April 5.
And, as of Sept. 19, California had 162 earthquakes registering a magnitude of 1.5 or higher. On Sept. 12, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake rattled the Los Angeles area, unleashing boulders onto a Malibu road, shaking Santa Monica’s 1909 wooden pier and waking some people from bed.
On Dec. 5, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the Golden State and triggered a nearly hour-long tsunami warning alert and impacted roads, bridges, and buildings, including schools.
At this particular point, there is nothing that American government can do to save the American people from the Wrath of God but to give justice to Black people, the Indigenous people (the Native Americans), and the people of Palestine and the suffering poor in its own country, explained Nation of Islam Southwest Regional Student Minister Abdul Haleem Muhammad of Mosque No. 45 in Houston.
He holds a Ph.D in Urban Planning and Environmental Policy. He explained that these ongoing weather disasters also impact America’s infrastructure.
True mitigation of problems requires justice and equity, he explained. “It is the fulfillment of prophecy, found in the Book of Exodus, where Allah (God) plagued Pharaoh and the people of Egypt to force Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go; in this case, to let Black people go to build a nation for the glory of God,” stated Student Min. Haleem Muhammad.
From May 2-5, 130 tornadoes were either confirmed by the National Weather Service or sighted by storm spotters. At least five people were killed. The tornadoes spanned over 10 different states from Wyoming to Iowa to Texas. Over 30 tornadoes were confirmed in Oklahoma, at least two dozen in Iowa, 20 in Texas, 16 in Missouri, 15 in Kansas, and 13 in Nebraska.
On May 1, storms brought tornadoes and hail the size of golf balls to parts of Kansas. On May 2, one of the tornadoes fell into the rare one percent of those that spin in the opposite direction.
In addition, an extremely rare, backward-spinning anticyclonic tornado touched down in Oklahoma. “This is so incredibly rare it’s hard to describe,” Taylor Trogdon of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration posted on X, formerly Twitter.
In mid-June, South Florida was beset with rain bringing record-setting flooding, which delivered 20 inches of rain in 24 hours impacting travel and damaging property. In August, Tropical Storm Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane along the Gulf Coast of Florida on August 5. She traveled across the East Coast and left destruction in her wake.
God’s judgment continued in October as Hurricane Milton forced Florida back into recovery.
The Sunshine State was still recovering from Hurricane Helene’s destruction when another hurricane hit it two weeks later. Hurricane Milton made landfall on late Oct. 9 as a Category 3 near Siesta Key, along the West Coast of Florida and South of the Tampa Bay area.
Milton caused massive rain and bands of tornadoes that spread across South Florida, destroying about 125 homes before making landfall. By Oct. 11, the death toll had risen to 16, with multiple deaths being from the tornado outbreak. Breaking records, Helene was the eighth named storm this Atlantic hurricane season and Milton, the 13th.
As the year came to a close, arctic blasts hit the U.S. overshadowing its ‘Thanksgiving holiday weekend’ with “dangerously cold” freezing temperatures and lake-effect snow warnings in the latest of God’s Judgment. The blast affected tens of millions in the Midwest and East, following a winter storm that brought snow and rain.
Heat-wise, America was set ablaze with fires raging on the East and West Coasts in November.
The Mountain Fire in Southern California’s Ventura County started on Nov. 6, near the city of Camarillo, northwest of Los Angeles. By Nov. 12, it had burned 20,630 acres, damaged 127 structures, destroyed 243, and left nearly 70,000 people across five counties without power.
The cause was still under investigation at press time. In the Northeast, drought contributed to numerous wildfires in New Jersey and New York
Many areas experienced below-average temperatures from Friday, Nov. 29, to the beginning of the following week. In the Upper Midwest and northern Plains, temperatures dropped several degrees below zero, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Weather Prediction Center.
Some southern states, including parts of Florida and Georgia, experienced sub-freezing temperatures as low as 20 and 30 degrees, down from the 60s and 70s during most of November.
The Great Lakes region experienced lake-effect snow and parts of California were issued a dense fog warning said to reduce visibility for drivers, and drivers in Oregon and Washington were threatened with icy roads, as freezing fog advisories were issued.
AccuWeather dubbed it the “coldest start to December in years.” By month’s end, a winter storm had engulfed the country. Its scope had been nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico.
About 60 percent of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, according to the National Weather Service.
Final Call Staff contributed to this report.