NOAA retires its billion-dollar disaster database as extreme-weather costs hit records (2025)

Case

In May 2025 NOAA announced it would stop updating its public database of U.S. weather and climate disasters costing at least $1 billion, a record kept since 1980, citing "evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes." The announcement followed deep NOAA staffing cuts. A nonprofit, Climate Central, relaunched the database in October 2025 and reports 23 billion-dollar disasters in 2025, the third-highest count on record. Rising costs reflect both more extreme weather and more people and property in harm's way.

What NOAA did (May 2025)
On May 8, 2025, NOAA announced that its Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database would be retired, with no updates beyond calendar year 2024.
NOAA's communications director said the change was in alignment with "evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes."
The database estimated the cost of individual disasters back to 1980 by combining FEMA assistance data, insurance industry data, state agency data and other sources. The existing data stays archived and accessible but is no longer updated.
The announcement came after NOAA fired hundreds of probationary employees in February 2025, part of the DOGE effort to shrink the federal workforce.
NOAA's last full year of data, 2024, recorded 27 billion-dollar events causing more than $182 billion in damage and 568 deaths.
The scientist who built the database, Adam Smith, had said a week before the announcement that he thought it was in trouble, and said he wanted to continue the work elsewhere.

What replaced it
On October 22, 2025, the nonprofit Climate Central launched a new version of the database, with the full archive from 1980 and data through June 2025.
Climate Central counts 23 billion-dollar disasters in 2025, costing about $115 billion and 276 lives. That is the third-highest annual count since 1980, behind 2023 (28 events) and 2024 (27 events).
Since 1980, Climate Central counts 426 billion-dollar disasters costing more than $3.1 trillion.
The 1980-2025 average is about nine events and $67.6 billion a year, so 2025 was well above the long-run average.
In 2025 the average gap between billion-dollar disasters was 10 days. Over the past decade it averaged 16 days.

Context and counterpoints
Severe storms, including tornado outbreaks and hail, made up 91% of the billion-dollar events in 2025.
The National Climate Assessment says severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are harder to assess for long-term trends than heat or heavy rain, because direct observations of those events are incomplete.
The National Climate Assessment attributes the rise in disaster counts and costs partly to more frequent and severe extreme events and partly to rising exposure and vulnerability, including higher property values and more development in hazard-prone areas.
2025 was the third-highest year, not a record, so the long-term rise is clear but not every year is worse than the last.

Perspectives

Official position — NOAA (communications director Kim Doster)
The decision to stop updating the database was made "in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes." NOAA says existing data stays archived and accessible, and that other datasets also track deaths from these disasters.

Critic — Climate and risk researchers, as reported by Grist
Experts describe the database as an essential tool for judging risk and planning adaptation, and they warned when it was retired that no other public source tracks the cost of extreme weather this way. Climate Central says it will keep improving the database and may add smaller-scale disasters.

Editorial read — The Author (site author)
A national record of what extreme weather costs, kept since 1980, was dropped by the federal government while the costs were at or near record levels, and it now survives only because a nonprofit rebuilt it. This fits a pattern covered in the linked entries: federal capacity to detect and measure harm is shrinking. The record does not show that anyone meant to hide the trend, and the rise in costs reflects exposure as well as climate, but a public good that depends on a charity's funding is fragile.

Research notes
Open leads: (1) NOAA's own database page was fetched but returned only a citation block, so the retirement banner wording is taken from news coverage. (2) Climate Central's 2025 report page shows March 9, 2026 while news coverage dates the release to early January 2026. (3) Check whether other NOAA datasets or products were retired for the same stated reasons. (4) Unverified: reports that National Climate Assessment authors were dismissed in 2025; not included until confirmed. (5) CNN's report on this announcement was not used because the site blocks automated access.

Note
NOAA says the retirement reflected priorities, statutory mandates and staffing; none of the sources reviewed claims it was meant to conceal a trend, and rising costs reflect both more extreme weather and more exposure.

Sources
[1] Scripps News: NOAA says it will discontinue its billion-dollar disaster database (https://scrippsnews.com/science-and-tech/climate-change/noaa-says-it-will-discontinue-its-billion-dollar-disaster-database) · 2025-05-08
[2] Associated Press (via MyNorthwest): US retires database tracking billions of dollars of climate change-fueled weather damage (https://mynorthwest.com/?p=4085302) · 2025-05-08
[3] NPR, The Indicator from Planet Money: Why the government used to keep track of billion dollar climate disasters (https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1253616079) · 2025-06
[4] Climate Central: U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters in 2025 (https://www.climatecentral.org/report/us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters-2025) · 2026
[5] Climate Central: 2025 in review, U.S. billion-dollar disasters (https://climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2025-in-review) · 2026
[6] Climate Central (via PreventionWeb): Now at Climate Central, U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters (https://www.preventionweb.net/news/now-climate-central-us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters) · 2025-10
[7] Grist: In 2025, America suffered a billion-dollar disaster every 10 days (https://grist.org/extreme-weather/in-2025-america-suffered-a-billion-dollar-disaster-every-10-days/) · 2026
[8] ABC News (via The Pulse of NH): The US experienced nearly two dozen billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2025 (https://thepulseofnh.com/?p=206891) · 2026-01
[9] NBC Palm Springs: Private sector revives climate disaster database after federal tracking was halted (https://www.nbcpalmsprings.com/2026/01/08/private-sector-revives-climate-disaster-database-after-federal-tracking-was-halted) · 2026-01-08
[10] Fifth National Climate Assessment, Chapter 2: Climate Trends (U.S. Global Change Research Program) (https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/) · 2023-11

Connections

Same context — Elon Musk: 2024 political spending, DOGE role and ties to the Trump administration
DOGE-era staffing and budget cuts at NOAA, tagged DOGE in this entry.

Same context — Ocean observing under budget pressure: NOAA research cuts, Argo floats and the end of U.S. biogeochemical Argo (2025-2026)
Both concern shrinking federal capacity to measure environmental conditions: that entry covers the retired disaster-cost database, this one the Argo floats and proposed NOAA research cuts, and NOAA's 2025 staff losses figure in both.