Time Series

Visualize the frequency and cost of billion-dollar weather and climate events using the interactive time series.

Event Total Cost Range Filter:
$1B
$203B
State Summary

In 2024, there have been 27 confirmed U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events. These events include: seventeen severe storm events (tornado outbreaks, high wind, hailstorms) five tropical cyclones, one wildfire, one drought/heat wave and two winter storm/cold wave events. This follows 2023 in which there were a record 28 separate billion-dollar events. The total cost from these 27 events in 2024 was $182.7 billion. This is our current cost estimates as of January 10th and may rise by several billion dollars as new data become available. The total cost of the last ten years (2015-2024) exceeds $1.4 trillion while the costs for 403 events from 1980-2024 exceeds $2.915 trillion (inflation-adjusted to 2024 dollars).

The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is the Nation's Scorekeeper in terms of addressing severe weather and climate events in their historical perspective. As part of its responsibility of monitoring and assessing the climate, NCEI tracks and evaluates climate events in the U.S. and globally that have great economic and societal impacts. NCEI is frequently called upon to provide summaries of global and U.S. temperature and precipitation trends, extremes, and comparisons in their historical perspective. The Billion-dollar disasters product update is a quantification of the weather and climate disasters that in 2024 led to more than $1 billion in collective damages for each event. It is intended to show the impact of extreme weather and climate events on the economy in inflation adjusted dollars and has no focus on climate event attribution. Caution should be used in interpreting trends based on this graphic for a variety of reasons. For example, inflation has affected our ability to compare costs over time. To reflect this, the graphic also shows events with less than $1 billion in damage at the time of the event, but after adjusting for inflation (Consumer Price Index), now exceed $1 billion in damages.

A major driver of increased costs of extreme weather is the increase in population and material wealth over the last several decades. "The intensification of these and other more extreme weather-climate events are intersecting with areas experiencing high levels of health disparities, social vulnerabilities, and increased exposure due to population growth in hazard-prone areas. Exposure to extreme weather and climate hazards in the Gulf of America state region is increasing as a result of population growth and increased construction of public and private development in hazard-prone areas" (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Compounding Disasters in Gulf Coast Communities 2020-2021: Impacts, Findings, and Lessons (2024)). Additionally, much of the growth and property development has continued taken place in vulnerable areas like coasts, the wildland-urban interface, and river floodplains. Increased building and population growth in areas at high risk of wildfires and hurricanes mean that more people and property are at risk and so also contribute to larger losses (CBO report on "Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and Homeowner's Insurance" (2024)). Approximately 42% of the contiguous United States (CONUS) population lives in coastal areas, which account for less than 10% of the total land area. However, there have been steady increases in coastal population density across CONUS despite historical flood loss events (Poudel et al, 2024). Areas where building codes are insufficient for reducing damage from extreme events are especially vulnerable to more expensive extreme weather (Multi-Hazard Mitigation Council report on Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves (2019). This is part of the reason that the 2010s decade is far costlier in the Billion-dollar disaster data set than the 2000s, 1990s, or 1980s, when adjusted for inflation to current dollars.

Losses from the billion-dollar disasters tracked in this data set have averaged $140 billion per year over the last decade. 2017 was the costliest year, exceeding $300 billion - proportional to about 25 percent of the $1.3 trillion building value put in place that year (Multi-Hazard Mitigation Council, 2019). Since 1980, there have been changes in the frequency and intensity of some weather extremes that can lead to billion-dollar disasters. Drought has become more frequent, lengthening wildfire seasons in the Western states, and extremely heavy rainfall has become more common in the eastern states. Sea level rise can also worsen hurricane storm surge flooding, increasing the cost of a disaster (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Compounding Disasters in Gulf Coast Communities 2020-2021: Impacts, Findings, and Lessons (2024); Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment (2023); Multi-Hazard Mitigation Council. Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves (2019)).

Milestones to Improve Data Analysis

In 2012, NCEI -- then known as National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) -- reviewed its methodology on how it develops Billion-dollar Disasters. NCEI held a workshop with economic experts (May, 2012) and worked with a consulting partner to examine possible inaccuracy and biases in the data sources and methodology used in developing the loss assessments (mid-2013). This ensures more consistency with the numbers NCEI provides on a yearly basis and give more confidence in the year-to-year comparison of information. Another outcome is a published peer-reviewed article "U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Data Sources, Trends, Accuracy and Biases" (Smith and Katz, 2013). This research found the net effect of all biases appears to be an underestimation of average loss. In particular, it is shown that the factor approach can result in an underestimation of average loss of approximately 10–15%. This bias was corrected during a reanalysis of the loss data to reflect new loss totals.

It is also known that the uncertainty of loss estimates differ by disaster event type reflecting the quality and completeness of the data sources used in our loss estimation. In 2024, seven of the 27 separate billion-dollar events (i.e., five tropical cyclones, Upper Midwest Flooding and the multi-region drought and heatwave) have higher potential uncertainty values around the loss estimates due to less coverage of insured assets and data latency. The remaining 20 events (i.e., the winter storms and severe storm events producing tornado, hail and high wind damage) have lower potential uncertainty surrounding their estimate due to more complete insurance coverage and data availability. One approach to understanding cost uncertainty is discussed in the peer-reviewed article "Quantifying Uncertainty and Variable Sensitivity within the U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disaster Cost Estimates" (Smith and Matthews, 2015). More recent feedback from the American Meteorological Society community have suggested that we incorporate smaller cost thresholds into our analysis, to more completely capture the hazard risk space. We are currently developing this more comprehensive scope, by quantifying the total, direct losses for all sub-billion events down to $100 million, from 1980-present. We aim to provide new summary analysis for hundreds of events in late-April 2025, which will more completely describe the weather and climate event frequency and cost distribution over space, time and by hazard.

In performing these disaster cost assessments these statistics were developed using the most comprehensive public and private sector sources and represent the estimated total costs of these events -- that is, the costs in terms of dollars that would not have been incurred had the event not taken place. More than one dozen public and private sector data sources help capture the total, direct costs (both insured and uninsured) of the weather and climate events. These costs include: physical damage to residential, commercial, and municipal buildings; material assets (content) within buildings; time element losses such as business interruption or loss of living quarters; damage to vehicles and boats; public assets including roads, bridges, levees; electrical infrastructure and offshore energy platforms; agricultural assets including crops, livestock, and commercial timber; and wildfire suppression costs, among others. However, these disaster costs do not take into account losses to: natural capital or environmental degradation; mental or physical healthcare related costs, the value of a statistical life (VSL); or supply chain, contingent business interruption costs. Therefore, our estimates should be considered conservative with respect to what is truly lost, but cannot be completely measured due to a lack of consistently available data. Sources include the National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Interagency Fire Center, U.S. Army Corps, individual state emergency management agencies, state and regional climate centers and insurance industry estimates, among others.

For more in-depth analysis, the following report offers the latest summary on the 2024: An active year of U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters.

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