In the first six months of this year, extreme weather disasters in the US racked up more than $100 billion in damages, according to a new database from the nonprofit Climate Central that picks up where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) left off. NOAA had tracked all billion-dollar disasters to befall the US beginning in the 1990s, but the Trump administration halted updates to it five months ago.
Former NOAA scientist Adam Smith oversaw the original federal database for 15 years and is continuing the work with Climate Central using the same methodology, the New York Times reports. "This data set was simply too important to stop being updated," Smith told the paper. More than $60 billion of the $101.4 billion disaster total incurred between January and June is tied to the January wildfires in Los Angeles, which nearly doubled the previous record for fire-related losses logged in Northern California in 2018.
In total, 14 separate disasters each caused at least $1 billion in damage in the first half of the year. NOAA's database contained data stretching to 1980 (the database names 417 billion-dollar disasters altogether), and the Times reports that in the 1980s, the US averaged three such disasters per year; over the last decade, that average has jumped to 19. The biggest tallies have occurred in the past two years, per NBC News: 28 disasters in 2023 and 27 in 2024. The costliest year was 2017, at $306 billion (roughly $405 billion in today's dollars).
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While some of the increase is due to more people and businesses moving into high-risk areas, Smith is unequivocal: "The rise in damage relates to human activities." He says complete 2025 data will be compiled in January of next year. The Times points out it has been "an unexpectedly quiet Atlantic hurricane season" thus far, which could lead to a less expensive second half of the year.
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