Record-Breaking Losses Attributed to 2025's Natural Disasters

Despite the loss of a critical weather disaster tracking program, new data is shining a light on how much this year's weather events have cost the U.S. Here is a closer look at what the data is telling us.

2025 on Track to be Costliest Year on Record for Natural Disasters

This year's extreme natural disasters have been responsible for over $100 billion in damages, according to a new report out of Climate Central. This amount is higher than the annual gross domestic product (GDP) output of over 100 countries. The economic damages encompass the deadly Los Angeles wildfires to start the year, as well as 13 additional severe weather events.  

The numbers come from data gathered by Adam Smith, a former scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Smith was one of several federal employees who left NOAA recently as the government continues to shrink. While the federal government typically tracks the monetary costs of these weather disasters, President Donald Trump cut the NOAA program that performed this task.

However, the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Database was relaunched without government funding by Smith, tracking the financial damages of property and other infrastructure losses. The group recently released its first update, looking at the first six months of the year. The results indicate that this was the most expensive initial six months since 1980.

Smith used his prior experience working on this database to revive it under the banner of the nonprofit research group at Climate Central. Smith and his colleagues documented 14 extreme events between January and June 2025. Each of these 14 events caused more than $1 billion in damage, leading to a total of $101.4 billion.

The climate research nonprofit group Climate Central has released this information to a variety of interests. These include insurers, policy makers, meteorologists, and everyday citizens. The group warns that the public would have no easy way to comprehend the cost of these extreme weather events without a comprehensive database such as this.

The Palisades and Eaton fires got the year off to a devastating start when they tore through portions of the Los Angeles metro area to the tune of $61.2 billion in damages. This duo of fires translated to over half of the estimated losses during the first six months of the year. The fires were also the costliest on record, almost doubling the previous record. According to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, the two fires scorched over 40,000 acres, damaging almost 20,000 properties and killing at least 27 people.