Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Site Section
Data & Maps

Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters

Associated Agencies

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (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.

NCEI's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters shows the weather and climate events that have had the greatest economic impact from 1980 to the present. The website includes an interactive maps, time series, and other tools to visualize the frequency and cost of billion-dollar weather and climate events, including drought.

Interactive Map: Cost of U.S. Billion-Dollar Drought Disasters
Map

Cost of Major Drought Events Since 1980
Range Map Hex Color
$0 - $5M #ffffff
$5M - $100M #faf3ce
$100M - $250M #faea96
$250M - $500M #ffe971
$500M - $1B #f9c555
Range Map Hex Color
$1B - $2B #f3a43f
$2B - $5B #d27e3f
$5B - $10B #a9512a
$10B - $20B #762212
$20B - $50B #501011

Access

Billion-Dollar Disasters Home Page

Mapping: Use the interactive mapping tool to better visualize the frequency and cost of billion-dollar weather and climate events

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

Climatology: View interactive charts that capture the total duration of each billion-dollar disaster

Summary Stats: Return billion-dollar weather and climate statistics for an area of interest over a selected period of time

Events: A table of U.S. billion-dollar disaster events including summaries, report links, and statistics.

Documentation

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Smith, A., and J. Matthews. 2015. Quantifying Uncertainty and Variable Sensitivity within the U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disaster Cost Estimates. Natural Hazards. DOI: 10.1007/s11069-015-1678-x

Smith, A., and R. Katz, 2013. U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Data Sources, Trends, Accuracy and Biases. Natural Hazards. DOI: 10.1007/s11069-013-0566-5

Technical Reports and Analyses

Smith, A. 2010-2019: A landmark decade of U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, Technical Report, 2020.

Smith, A. 2018's Billion Dollar Disasters in Context, Technical Report, 2019.

Smith, A. 2017. U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters: a historic year in context, Technical Report, 2018.

Smith, A. 2016. A historic year for billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in U.S., Technical Report, 2017.

Calculating the Cost of Weather and Climate Disasters: 7 things to know about U.S. billion-dollar disasters.

Lott, N., and T. Ross. 2006. Tracking and evaluating U. S. billion dollar weather disasters, 1980-2005. Preprints. AMS Forum: Environmental Risk and Impacts on Society: Successes and Challenges, Atlanta, GA, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 1.2.

Lott, N., and T. Ross. 2003. A Climatology of 1980-2003 Extreme Weather and Climate Events, Technical Report.

U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters 1980-2019, Technical report.