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<p>The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Normals are widely adopted for benchmarking and classifying weather phenomena as above normal, below normal, near average, or extreme. The rigorous data collection, monitoring, and statistical analysis associated with meteorological conditions and ultimately data products such as the Climate Normals have yet to be applied to societal impacts and human costs of natural hazards and disasters. This study calculates 30-year loss normals for the United States as a standard way to compare the direct socioeconomic impacts of natural hazards to historical estimates based on a compilation of hazard impact data from mostly federal sources going back to 1960 as retrieved from the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS™). The time periods of the U.S. Disaster Normals correspond to NOAA’s climate normal products, including 30-year conventional normals (1991–2020) and reference normals (1961–1990). On average, the annual burden of natural hazards in the United States is $42.8&#xa0;billion (in 2022 USD) for the most recent 30-year period and $53.3&#xa0;billion at the 80th percentile. Compared to the reference normal (1961–1990), losses have increased by about $20&#xa0;billion per year. While this increase is statistically significant, several data limitations potentially lead to an underestimation of losses during the reference normal period. Going forward, U.S. Disaster Normals can be utilized to contextualize and classify future events based on their socioeconomic impacts, and will, in conjunction with climate observations, facilitate the continued investigation of the societal drivers of disaster losses.</p>

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U.S. Disaster Normals

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月31日

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  • Melanie Gall,
  • Esther Boyle,
  • Susan L. Cutter,
  • Ramesh Gorantla,
  • Petar Jevtic

摘要

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Normals are widely adopted for benchmarking and classifying weather phenomena as above normal, below normal, near average, or extreme. The rigorous data collection, monitoring, and statistical analysis associated with meteorological conditions and ultimately data products such as the Climate Normals have yet to be applied to societal impacts and human costs of natural hazards and disasters. This study calculates 30-year loss normals for the United States as a standard way to compare the direct socioeconomic impacts of natural hazards to historical estimates based on a compilation of hazard impact data from mostly federal sources going back to 1960 as retrieved from the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS™). The time periods of the U.S. Disaster Normals correspond to NOAA’s climate normal products, including 30-year conventional normals (1991–2020) and reference normals (1961–1990). On average, the annual burden of natural hazards in the United States is $42.8 billion (in 2022 USD) for the most recent 30-year period and $53.3 billion at the 80th percentile. Compared to the reference normal (1961–1990), losses have increased by about $20 billion per year. While this increase is statistically significant, several data limitations potentially lead to an underestimation of losses during the reference normal period. Going forward, U.S. Disaster Normals can be utilized to contextualize and classify future events based on their socioeconomic impacts, and will, in conjunction with climate observations, facilitate the continued investigation of the societal drivers of disaster losses.