NOAA Retires Billion-Dollar Disaster Database Tracking US Weather Costs

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced it will retire its Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database after 2024, ending a key public resource that tracked the economic impact of costly weather events since 1980. This database compiled data from multiple sources to estimate damages from events such as hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and heatwaves, which have increased in frequency and severity due to climate change. The decision, attributed to evolving agency priorities and staffing changes under the Trump administration, has sparked criticism for limiting transparency and hindering governments, insurers, and researchers from understanding and preparing for climate-driven disasters. NOAA will maintain access to archived data but will no longer update it, effectively removing a crucial tool for assessing disaster trends and informing infrastructure and policy decisions. The move comes amid broader federal cutbacks in climate science and public climate-related programs, raising concerns about accountability and public awareness of climate change's escalating costs. Communities facing recurring and intensifying disasters may thus lose a vital means of tracking and responding to the growing economic toll of extreme weather.