FILE – A man walks by a formerly sunken boat standing upright into the air with its stern buried in the mud along the shoreline of Lake Mead amid a drought at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder City, Nev., June 22, 2022. Costly weather disasters kept raining down on America last year, pounding the nation with 18 climate extremes that caused at least $1 billion in damage each, totaling more than $165 billion, federal climate scientists calculated Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

DENVER (AP) — America’s onslaught of mega costly weather disasters remains stuck in high gear. Federal climate scientists on Tuesday say that 2022 had 18 climate extremes that caused at least $1 billion in damage, costing more than $165 billion in damage. This is part of a big jump in US billion dollar disasters has been going on since 2016. Meteorologists say 2022 was a wild year even though it wasn’t too unusually hot of a year for the United States. It was merely the 18th warmest on record for the US. Scientists say climate change is supercharging weather extremes.