Billion-dollar disasters database ceases operations
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- As temperatures continue to rise in our warming climate, the United States is experiencing more extreme weather events. These weather disasters are becoming more intense and, unfortunately, more frequent.
Through June 2025, according to Gallagher Re, eight of the Top 10 billion-dollar disasters have happened in the United States. The Top 2 are the Palisades Fire (a $37 billion economic loss) and the Eaton Fire (a $28 billion economic loss). Both of these events occurred in January.
Climate Central is out with a study indicating that, between 1980 and 2024, the United States had dealt with 403 billion-dollar disasters. These disasters include weather events such as floods, hurricanes, severe storms and wildfires.
The price tag for these catastrophic events? In dollars, $3 trillion. In loss of life, nearly 17,000.
The information comes from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. The NCEI is discontinuing updates to its Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product. The information archived will remain, but there will no longer be any additional data going forward. This means that the recent Hill Country floods won't be added to the database, at least not for now.
The reasons given include evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes. These reasons come from NOAA.
The database also provides information that shows the average time between disasters dropped from 82 days in the 1980s to less than 20 days in the last ten years. What this does is put a strain on those available resources needed to respond and recover.
The database, per Climate Central, paints the picture of the noted increase in climate-related disasters. Ending could result in a far greater economic toll and loss of life.
The database told us that in 2024, 27 billion-dollar disasters claimed 568 lives with an additional price tag of $182.7 trillion.
The study done by Climate Central broke down this information state by state. Number one on the list is Texas. Between 1980 and 2024, our state suffered 190 billion-dollar disasters. Sixty-six percent of those disasters were from severe storms.
Texas was number two in the total cost of those billion-dollar disasters, with losses totaling $436 billion. In terms of those dollars, 57% of those billion-dollar disasters came from tropical cyclones, including Hurricane Harvey.
What many climate and weather experts likely agree is that the loss of the database could make it difficult for governmental agencies to prepare, respond and protect moving forward. The valuable information could be found elsewhere, perhaps by insurance companies, as this information is as valuable for them as it is for all of us.
Of course, time will tell.