NOAA is retiring its billion-dollar weather disaster database, making public tracking of extreme weather costs nearly impossible. This decision, attributed to staff reductions and a broader narrowing of services under the current administration, eliminates a crucial resource for researchers, the media, and the public. The database, containing decades of proprietary data, showed a significant increase in billion-dollar disasters in recent years, a trend some attribute to climate change, though NOAA itself doesn't explicitly make that claim. Its discontinuation hinders the ability to analyze and understand the increasing costs of extreme weather events, leaving a significant data gap.

Prepared by Olivia Bennett and reviewed by editorial team.