The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has updated its Billion Dollar Disasters mapping tool to include U.S. census tract data. The update will provide users with local community-level awareness of hazard risk, exposure and vulnerability across more than 100 combinations of weather and climate hazards.

With the interactive maps from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), users can now visualize a community’s combined physical exposure, socioeconomic vulnerability and markers of resilience to natural hazards on a finer scale than ever before, according to NOAA.

The weather and climate hazards displayed through the tool include:

• Severe storms and tornadoes
• Drought events and heat waves
• Hurricanes and tropical storms
• Wildfires
• River-basin and urban flooding
• Winter storms, freeze events and cold waves

“The updated tool will provide a better understanding of how weather, ocean, and climate disasters impact many Americans at the community level, and help guide targeted preparation and mitigation efforts as we build a Climate-Ready Nation,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D.

Since January 2020, the U.S. has experienced 51 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, totaling more than $275 billion in damages and killing nearly 1,000 people. From January to June 2022, the U.S. has already been impacted by nine separate billion-dollar disasters. The mapping tool can help organizations, leaders, and people understand the risk of weather and climate disasters and plan risk assessments accordingly. 

For more information, visit www.ncei.noaa.gov.