HOUSTON — The deadly and widespread winter storm paralyzing much of the American East with ice, snow and cold is also taking a multi-billion dollar bite out of the U.S. economy, experts figure.

But how much? Economists and meteorologists are trying to get a handle on the disruption costs of winter weather disasters, which aren’t as easy to calculate as buildings destroyed by hurricanes, floods and fires.

“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,” said Jacob Fooks, a research economist for Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University.

Fooks said researchers don’t have consensus, but most estimates suggest severe weather events collectively can cut gross domestic product by 0.5% to 2% annually — which he called “very substantial.”

With U.S. GDP at about $30 trillion annually, that would be from $150 billion to $600 billion.

Private company puts big price tag on storm

Most economists, meteorologists and disaster experts said it’s too early to put a legitimate cost estimate on the weekend storm and upcoming week of subfreezing temperatures. But the private company AccuWeather announced that its preliminary estimate for the storm that grounded 11,400 flights is between $105 billion and $115 billion — an amount six other experts scoffed at as far too high and insufficiently detailed.

“A lot of it comes from the disruptions that occur to commerce, the cost of power outages,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter told The Associated Press at the annual American Meteorological Society convention in a chilly Houston. “Some businesses are going to be shut down for days or a week or more.”

It’s why AccuWeather is calling this “the storm that shut it all down,” Porter said. By Monday, it had killed at least 25 people.

Add to that ice toppling electrical lines leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power, tree losses, damage to cars, and all those canceled flights, Porter said. He noted it will take time to reboot air travel and restore power.

Climate economist Adam Smith, who used to run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s billion-dollar weather disaster list, said this storm will easily cost multiple billions of dollars, making it the country’s first billion-dollar weather disaster of 2026.