Heavy Snow in the United States

How dangerous are Heavy Snow events in the U.S.?

The NOAA file shows a substantial human toll without entering PlainHazard's highest band: 82 fatalities and 269 injuries across 23,855 events. The high band covers hazard types with 20-99 cumulative fatalities in this 2015-2025 record. It compares catalog totals only; exposure and consequences vary widely from one event and location to another.

This hazard is recorded far more often than it proves fatal. Among the 44 hazard types with at least 100 recorded events it ranks #10 by frequency but only #32 by fatalities per event, at 3.4 deaths per 1,000 recorded events. Recorded damage averages $11.4K per event, so its cumulative toll is driven mainly by how routinely it occurs rather than by the severity of any one event.

Annual totals swing noticeably from year to year. The peak year on record was 2019, logging 2,881 events and $21.5M in property damage in a single calendar year. The most recent year in the dataset is 2025 with 1,804 events recorded. Across the full 11-year window, annual event counts reflect seasonal climate cycles and, for some years, longer climate-driven shifts in frequency.

This is a more frequency-heavy than loss-heavy record. The hazard ranks #10 by event count but #19 for combined property and crop damage, a gap of 9 places. Its listed losses represent 0.1% of the catalog total. The human-toll rank is #22, or 0.8% of recorded fatalities, so neither event count nor damage rank substitutes for the other.

Geographic exposure skews toward a small cluster of frequently-hit states. The three states absorbing the largest share of events are California (1,814 events, 6 fatalities), Washington (1,700 events, 5 fatalities), Idaho (1,495 events, 1 fatalities), a mix of underlying hazard climatology and how many people live in the exposed corridor. At the other end, states such as Maryland, Delaware, Hawaii report far fewer events, a meaningfully lower-frequency pattern there, though local vigilance still matters.

NOAA entries are reports filed by local National Weather Service offices. Counts therefore reflect both observed weather and reporting practice; they do not measure unreported events, household exposure, or the probability of a future event at one address.