NOAA database will stop tracking most expensive disasters

By Daniel Cusick | 05/08/2025 04:25 PM EDT

The web portal providing weather and climate disaster information since 1980 will be maintained only through last year, the agency said.

Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover the Lower Ninth Ward and other parts of New Orleans a day after the storm hit the city.

Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover the Lower Ninth Ward and other parts of New Orleans on Aug. 30, 2005, a day after the storm hit the city. David J. Phillip/AP

One of NOAA’s most comprehensive climate disaster information portals will no longer be updated, according to an agency notice posted atop the Billion-Dollar Disasters webpage.

The decision to abandon the website is “in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes,” the notice states. “All past reports, spanning 1980-2024, and their underlying data remain authoritative, archived and available via the landing page.”

“The NOAA Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product will be retired, with no updates beyond calendar year 2024,” the agency said in its notice.

In a Bluesky post, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called the move to discontinue updating the site “anti-science, anti-safety and anti-American.”

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