U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters
For three decades, the annual count of U.S. weather and climate disasters causing a billion dollars or more in damage never reached double digits. Then the floor gave way: the 2010s averaged 12.4 such events a year, and the first half of the 2020s is averaging 23. A catastrophe that once struck every few months has become a near-monthly fixture.
3.0
events per year — roughly one every four months
12.4
events per year — nearly triple the 2000s pace
23.0
events per year — one every 16 days, 7.7× the 1980s
28
events in 2023 — the most in any year on record
Hover any bar for its value. Steps mark decade averages; the dashed step covers the partial decade, 2020–2024.
From 1980 through 2010 the count never once reached double digits. Then 2011 broke the pattern with 18 events — and the 2010s went on to average 12.4 a year, nearly triple the decade before.
Each of the last five years has logged at least 18 billion-dollar disasters — a level reached only once (2011) in the previous 40 years. What was once a record is now the minimum.
2023 set the mark with 28 events, and 2024 nearly matched it with 27. Either year alone comes close to the entire 1980s combined — 30 disasters across ten years.