USA Today, by Ignacio Calderon: This year’s extreme weather disasters have wreaked so much destruction that they collectively eclipse the annual GDP of more than 100 countries and come close to New York City’s massive budget, the largest in the nation.
Record losses for U.S. communities in the first half of this year were driven by the Palisades and Eaton fires in January, which tore through Los Angeles neighborhoods, destroyed thousands of homes and left a long road to recovery.
That conclusion is based on newly published data from a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist and the nonprofit research group at Climate Central, documenting 14 extreme events from January to June 2025. Each of these events caused more than $1 billion in damage.
Combined, communities lost $101.4 billion because of these weather events, underscoring the devastating impact these disasters continue to have on communities.
Typically, the federal government would track these weather disasters, but the NOAA program was cut by the Trump administration. In its absence, Adam Smith, the NOAA scientist who led the effort for over a decade and was among the many federal employees who left the agency, revived the data at Climate Central using the same NOAA methods.
While most of these billion-dollar events were tornadoes and severe storms, the January Los Angeles fires caused $61.2 billion in damages, accounting for more than half the estimated damages in the first half of the year. They also became the costliest wildfires on record, nearly twice as expensive as the previous record, according to Climate Central.
The Palisades and Eaton fires burned over 40,000 acres, damaging nearly 20,000 properties and taking the lives of at least 27 people, according to a report by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.
In recent years, the number of weather events causing billions of dollars in damage has been climbing. Scientists have documented how some types of events are becoming more common because of climate change, but another factor is that more people live on the coast and near forests – places already at risk for hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters.
“But either way you look at it, the rise in damages relates to human activities,” Smith said.
Data gaps
The NOAA data was a popular tool for the agency and has been critical in helping communicate the economic cost of natural disasters.
Up until it was discontinued, it tracked over 400 weather events that cost nearly $3 trillion and took over 16,000 lives since 1980.
In recent months, the agency has taken a hit as its staffing was cut by 18% to 20%, according to estimates from former officials. In the aftermath, Climate Central is continuing the work.
“This is an apples-to-apples continuation of this analysis,” Smith told USA TODAY. “We’re using the same data sets, partners and methods to continue this valuable research.”
The data is backed by over a dozen datasets from the public and private sectors.
NOAA Communications Director Kim Doster told USA TODAY in an email statement: “NOAA appreciates that the Billion Dollar Disaster Product has found a funding mechanism other than the taxpayer dime.”
“NOAA will continue to refocus its resources on products that adhere to the President’s Executive Order restoring gold standard science, prioritizing sound, unbiased research over projects based in uncertainty and speculation,” Doster said.
Smith said that the initial goal is to get the tool up and running and then focus on expanding the work by not only looking at events that cost over $1 billion in damages but also smaller and medium-size events.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said it’s widely underestimated how challenging it is to estimate losses from an event, and the work being done by NOAA was not something that could have been easily reproduced by others.
While he said he is glad to have Climate Central fill out the void, he’s concerned that there was a need for that in the first place.
“I think that is commendable, and I wish we would see more organizations step up and do that,” Swain said. “But I think the background of that is that it is very bad news that we’re needing to ask private organizations to do this, instead of the government doing its job.”
Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, who has previously criticized NOAA’s billion-dollar disaster data, said the federal government should have a way to account for the cost of weather events.
“We should have the capacity to understand the economics of disasters, and the fact that we don’t is remarkable,” Pielke said, adding that the number of people who die from natural disasters has been decreasing, referring to that progress as a success story.
Even with a hurricane season that has been quieter than in other years, Smith expects 2025 to land in the top 10 costliest years. Complete data will be available in early 2026.
“It only takes one extreme event to really change the landscape of a place for years,” Smith said. “So having this information available is important.”
Prophetic Link:
“The judgments of God are abroad in the land. Calamities follow one another in rapid succession. Soon God is to rise out of His place to shake terribly the earth, and to punish the wicked for their iniquity. Then He will stand up in behalf of His people, and will give them His protecting care. He will throw His everlasting arms about them, to shield them from all harm.” Gospel Workers, 264.4
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