A Program NOAA Built, Now Run by the Scientist Who Built It
For years, the single most-cited answer to whether extreme weather is getting worse came from NOAA’s own Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database. That database no longer publishes updated figures. NOAA discontinued it in 2025, and the work continues instead at Climate Central, a nonprofit research group, under Adam Smith, the same scientist who served as its lead researcher at NOAA for 15 years before the handoff.
That distinction matters for anyone citing a current number. A 2026 figure describing US billion-dollar disasters is, technically, a Climate Central figure continuing NOAA’s original methodology, not a NOAA figure. This page attributes it that way throughout rather than relabeling it as government data.
The Trend, By the Numbers
Climate Central counted an average of about 3 billion-dollar disaster events a year in the 1980s. Between 2016 and 2025, that average climbed to roughly 20 events a year, nearly a seven-fold increase. The most recent three years on record are also the three highest ever recorded: 28 events in 2023, 27 in 2024, and 23 in 2025.
The gap between events has compressed just as sharply. The average time between one billion-dollar disaster and the next fell from 82 days in the 1980s to 16 days across 2016 to 2025, and to just 10 days in 2025 specifically. Over the full 46-year record, from 1980 through 2025, the country has recorded 426 billion-dollar disasters totaling $3.1 trillion in damages and roughly 17,194 fatalities.
2025 Set a Severe Storm Record Specifically
The category most relevant to a roofing company’s pipeline is severe storms, which covers the damaging wind and tornado events that drive hail and wind roofing claims. Climate Central recorded a new record of 21 billion-dollar severe storm events in 2025, reflecting near-record damaging wind and tornado activity in the spring and summer of that year.
A separate, single-year measure points the same direction. NOAA’s own Storm Events Database, the source behind VA Horizon’s hail and storm damage statistics page, recorded 5,432 hail events in 2025, up from 5,373 in 2024. That single-year comparison is not a substitute for the multi-decade trend above; it is a narrower, corroborating data point layered on top of it.
The Numbers
Billion-dollar weather disasters climbed from about 3 events a year in the 1980s to roughly 20 events a year between 2016 and 2025, nearly a seven-fold increase.
2023, 2024, and 2025 are the three highest years on record for billion-dollar disasters, at 28, 27, and 23 events respectively.
The average time between billion-dollar disaster events fell from 82 days in the 1980s to just 10 days in 2025.
2025 set a new record of 21 billion-dollar severe storm events, the category most relevant to hail and wind roofing damage.
From 1980 through 2025, the US recorded 426 billion-dollar disasters totaling $3.1 trillion in damages and roughly 17,194 fatalities.
NOAA’s own Storm Events Database recorded 5,432 hail events in 2025, up from 5,373 in 2024.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.