Overview

The U.S. has sustained 308 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2021). The total cost of these 308 events exceeds $2.085 trillion.

All Years (1980-present)
Events
308
7.3 per year
Cost
$2,086.2B
$49.7B per year
Deaths
15,030
358 per year
Last Year (2020)
Events
22
Rank: 1st
Cost
$100.2B
Rank: 5th
Deaths
262
Rank: 15th
Last 3 Years (2018-2020)
Events
50
16.7 per year
Cost
$246.7B
$82.2B per year
Deaths
553
184 per year
Last 5 Years (2016-2020)
Events
81
16.2 per year
Cost
$640.3B
$128.1B per year
Deaths
3,969
794 per year
2010s (2010-2019)
Events
123
12.3 per year
Cost
$858.4B
$85.8B per year
Deaths
5,224
522 per year
2000s (2000-2009)
Events
63
6.3 per year
Cost
$547.0B
$54.7B per year
Deaths
3,091
309 per year
1990s (1990-1999)
Events
53
5.3 per year
Cost
$288.6B
$28.9B per year
Deaths
3,045
305 per year
1980s (1980-1989)
Events
29
2.9 per year
Cost
$187.2B
$18.7B per year
Deaths
2,870
287 per year
View summary data in Summary Stats

2021 in Progress…

Map presenting billion-dollar events. See Events page for more information.

Methodology and Data Sources

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. Found here are the weather and climate events that have had the greatest economic impact from 1980 to 2021.

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 2019, six of the fourteen billion-dollar events (i.e., three inland floods events, California/Alaskan wildfires, tropical cyclones Dorian and Imelda) have higher potential uncertainty values around the loss estimates due to less coverage of insured assets and data latency. The remaining eight events (i.e., the 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. Our newest research defines the cost uncertainty using confidence intervals as 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). This research is a next step to enhance the value and usability of estimated disaster costs given data limitations and inherent complexities.

In performing these disaster cost assessments these statistics were taken from a wide variety of sources and represent, to the best of our ability, 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. Insured and uninsured losses are included in damage estimates. 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, media reports, and insurance industry estimates. Please see Calculating the Cost of Weather and Climate Disasters for more information. For more in-depth analysis, the following report offers the latest summary on the 2020 U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in historical context.

Citing this information:

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2021). https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/, DOI: 10.25921/stkw-7w73