NOAA will stop updating database tracking costliest weather disasters

Damage caused by the Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades, California. (Joel Angel Juarez/For The Washington Post)

By Scott Dance

Federal scientists will no longer update a list of weather disasters that cause billions of dollars in damage, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday. The list had been growing dramatically in recent years, a sign of both extreme weather and increasing development across the country.

It is on a growing list of scientific datasets that NOAA says scientists will no longer update or that the administration will decommission entirely. The agency said the existing disaster records, stretching from 1980 through 2024, will remain accessible.