We created this map to highlight severe weather at the local level, across the country. You can use the drop down menu or select a box on the graph to view any specific event that cost one billion dollars or more since 1996. Details about each event will appear in the chart, and the map will be colored in with every county that reported severe weather to the local weather service forecasting station during the dates specified.
It is possible that this map does not account for every county affected by a billion dollar weather event, largely because of reporting irregularities. We draw our information from NOAA’s extreme weather database, which in turn depends on observations from the counties, with some possibly reporting more consistently or fully than others. Despite these potential gaps, this map gives the user a sense of where truly severe weather is occurring or where the weather is having an expensive effect on the built environment (or both), and what type of weather it is. If you know one of these billion dollar events affected your county and we do not have it filled in, please email us at weathereye@newamerica.org, as we will be continually refining and updating.
