It was another catastrophic year for weather disasters in the United States.
The LA wildfires in January 2025 ‒ at $61.2 billion, the costliest fire outbreak in US history ‒ helped push the nation's "billion-dollar disasters" to a near record last year, even without a single landfalling hurricane, according to a new report released Jan. 8.
Overall, the nation suffered a staggering 23 separate weather and climate disasters in 2025, each of which cost over $1 billion in damages. According to the report, 2025 ranks as the third-highest year (after 2023 and 2024) for billion-dollar weather and climate disasters — with 23 such events costing a total of $115 billion in damages.
Severe weather accounted for a record 21 billion-dollar disasters in 2025 — concentrated in a series of spring and summer tornado outbreaks and severe thunderstorms across the central U.S., said the report, which was prepared by Climate Central, a non-profit climate science organization.
Lightning, tornadoes and wild storms: Incredible weather photos
In 2025, Climate Central began to oversee the "billion-dollar disaster" database, taking it over from the federal government. This followed the Trump administration's decision to no longer run the database, which had been overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
What are the main takeaways from the 2025 disaster list?
According to Adam Smith, a senior climate impacts scientist at Climate Central, "2025 was part of a continuing trend of an elevated risk for weather and climate extremes across many parts of the country," he told USA TODAY via email.
In addition, he said 2025 was the highest cost year without a billion-dollar hurricane event making landfall. Also, 2025 was also the first year on record with a billion-dollar wildfire as the costliest event of the year.
"The average interval between these costly events has narrowed to less than two weeks, compared to months between events in previous decades," Smith said. "This shift reflects increasing exposure and vulnerability, as well as the growing influence of climate change on certain types of hazards."
How much of a factor was climate change in these disasters last year, overall?
Smith told USA TODAY that "attribution studies are done to examine this very question for individual events. However, the broad scientific consensus is that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of many types of extreme and severe weather."
Overall, since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 426 billion-dollar disasters, with a total cost exceeding $3.1 trillion, Climate Central said.
Isn't the rise in disaster costs over the decades due primarily to us having more 'stuff' in the way?
Smith said that the increase in disaster costs is driven by greater exposure and vulnerability to extreme events, as well as by certain hazard types becoming more frequent or intense due to the influence of climate change.
"The rise in disaster costs is a human-made problem. Trends in where we decide to live and how we build make communities more vulnerable to these extremes," he said. "But we cannot overlook the impact from human-caused climate change increasing the intensity and frequency of some types of extreme events."
Why did Climate Central take over the billion-dollar database?
The billion-dollar disaster analysis is vital for demonstrating the economic impact of extreme weather and climate events in inflation-adjusted dollars, Smith said, and in helping communicate the real-world consequences of climate change to communities, decision-makers, and the public.
"This dataset was simply too important to stop being updated. Demand for its revival came from every aspect of society, including decision-makers, the private sector, academia, and local communities," he told USA TODAY.
According to Climate Central, as the new steward of this critical resource, Climate Central is committed to maintaining the scientific rigor and methodological standards established by NOAA while enhancing the dataset's utility for climate communication and public understanding of climate risks.
Additionally, although a useful resource, a weather event that may have killed many people (such as the July 4 Texas flooding that killed at least 137 people) but didn't approach the $1 billion total would not appear in this database.
To rectify this, "This year, we are developing a series of expansions to the historic 1980–present analysis to incorporate smaller-threshold events down to $100 million," Smith said. "This approach is intended to capture a wider range of impacts."
Doyle Rice is a national correspondent for USA TODAY, focusing on weather and climate.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:US weather disaster costs topped $100 billion in 2025. Here's why.
