NOAA Just Retired The Database That Tracked Billion-Dollar Disasters

For 45 years, the U.S. kept an official tally of its costliest disasters.

In May 2025, that scoreboard went dark.

NOAA retired the database. It will not be updated past 2024.

The Scoreboard Got Shut Off

The database had one job. It counted every weather event that cost at least $1 billion, going back to 1980.

NOAA said the old reports stay accurate and online. They cover 1980 through 2024, per the federal notice.

There just will not be new ones. The timing stands out.

In 2024, the country logged 27 separate billion-dollar disasters. That was the second most ever, behind only the 28 counted in 2023.

Those storms were not small. They drove much of the recent jump in home insurance bills.

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Why Investors Should Care

Insurance prices are built on disaster data. When the data gets thinner, the risk gets harder to measure.

And uncertainty is rarely cheap. That cost flows straight to homeowners.

It also flows to anyone who builds or owns property. The same goes for the wider housing market.

A nonprofit called Climate Central has stepped in to keep counting. The torch got passed, but the federal stamp did not come with it.

Markets hate a blind spot. Less public data tends to push prices higher, not lower.

The Trend Did Not Stop

For insurers pricing a riskier map, the line was already pointing up. Losing the official record does not bend it back down.

The events keep coming. The bills keep following.

The only thing that changed is who keeps score. The risk itself did not move.

The Cost Behind The Count

The 2024 total was staggering. Those 27 events cost about $182.7 billion.

That made 2024 the fourth-costliest year on record. Severe storms made up 17 of the 27 events.

The full record runs deep. Since 1980, the U.S. has logged 403 billion-dollar events.

Together they top $2.9 trillion in damage. That is the history insurers price against.

The count began back in the 1980s. It soon became a go-to gauge of climate risk.

Bond raters leaned on it. So did city planners and insurers.

NOAA pointed to shifting federal priorities. That was the reason it gave for ending the count.

Now that signal is fading from public view. Insurers still keep their own models.

But homeowners lose a free, neutral yardstick. That makes it harder to question a rate hike.

The gap matters for your wallet. A neutral count kept insurers honest on price.

Without it, rate hikes face less pushback. Investors in property lose a clean signal too.

What To Watch

The number to follow now lives outside the government. Climate Central's count is the new scoreboard.

The disasters did not stop. Only the federal tally did.

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