Tropical Cyclones Costliest Type of Weather-Related Disaster By Far

Since 1980, tropical cyclones have been the costliest type of weather-related disaster in the United States, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Accounting for just under a fifth (17.6%) of the total number of events, tropical cyclones have caused more than half (53.8%) of the total damages.

Types of Events Compared

NCEI currently monitors and assesses the costs and impacts of billion-dollar disasters in the following categories:

• Hurricanes
• Drought
• Inland floods
• Severe local storms
• Wildfires
• Crop freeze events
• Winter storms

Damages Quantified

Since 1980, the U.S. has sustained at least 341 weather and climate disasters where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including Consumer Price Index adjustment to 2022). The total cost of these 341 events exceeds $2.4 trillion.

Out of that total, tropical cyclones have caused a combined $1.3 trillion in total damages—with an average of $22.2 billion per event.

Rank ordered, they line up like this:

• Tropical Cyclones, with an average cost of $22.2 billion per event
• Drought, with an average cost of $10.9 billion per event
• Wildfires, with an average cost of $6.3 billion per event
• Flooding, with an average cost of $4.8 billion per event
• Winter storms, with an average cost of $4.3 billion per event
• Freezes, with an average cost of $3.9 billion per event
• Severe storms, with an average cost of $2.4 billion per event

No Region Immune

All parts of the county experience weather-related disasters. They change depending on region. For instance winter storms are more costly in the north, droughts in the plains, and tropical cyclones along seaboards.

Cost of Disasters Increasing

The number and cost of billion-dollar weather-related disasters increases over time. Here’s the breakdown by year.

Reasons Cited for Increase

Exercise caution when interpreting the upward slope of the graph above. It would be easy to attribute the slope to climate change.

But NCEI points out that increases in population, and material wealth over the last several decades are an important factor for higher damage. So are the locations of population concentrations and pushback on building codes.

“These trends are further complicated by the fact that many population centers and infrastructure exist in vulnerable areas like coasts and river floodplains, while building codes are often insufficient in reducing damage from extreme events,” says NCEI.

Data Sources

In calculating the cost assessments, we receive input from a variety of public and private data sources including:

• Insurance Services Office
• Federal Emergency Management Agency
• U.S. Department of Agriculture
• National Interagency Fire Center
• Energy Information Administration
• U.S. Army Corps
• State agencies
• Other partners

Costs Include…

Each of these data sources provides key pieces of information that capture the total, direct costs—both insured and uninsured—of weather and climate events. These costs include:

• Physical damage to residential, commercial, and government or municipal buildings
• Material assets within a building
• Time element losses like business interruption
• Vehicles and boats
• Offshore energy platforms, electrical infrastructure, military bases
• Public infrastructure like roads, bridges, levees, buildings
• Agricultural assets like crops, livestock, and timber
• Disaster restoration and wildfire suppression costs

One of the key transformations is scaling up insured loss data to account for uninsured and underinsured losses, which differs by peril, geography, and asset class.

Costs Do Not Include…

However, these loss assessments do not take into account losses to natural capital or assets, health-care-related losses, or values associated with loss of life. Therefore, consider NCEI estimates conservative with respect to what is truly lost, but cannot be completely measured.

Posted by Bob Rehak based on Information from NCEI

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