Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters
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.
U.S. Billion-Dollar Disaster cost data from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), available in text form, was joined to a spatial file of the United States.
Cost of Major Drought Events Since 1980
U.S. Billion-Dollar Disaster cost data from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), available in text form, was joined to a spatial file of the United States.
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.
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.
