Ice Storm in the United States

How dangerous are Ice Storm events in the U.S.?

The loss ranking is the stronger warning against reading frequency alone. Ice Storm is #27 of 54 by event count but rises to #18 for combined property and crop damage. Its losses make up 0.1% of the catalog total, while its fatalities rank #28 and represent 0.3% of recorded deaths. Fewer events can still produce an outsized financial record.

Annual totals swing noticeably from year to year. The peak year on record was 2021, logging 378 events and $22.2M in property damage in a single calendar year. The most recent year in the dataset is 2025 with 153 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.

Frequency and per-event lethality sit close together for this hazard: #27 by event count and #23 by fatalities per event among the 44 types with at least 100 recorded events, at 13.3 deaths per 1,000 recorded events. Recorded damage averages $114.1K per event. Neither the cumulative total nor the rate is misleading here -- they tell the same story.

Geographic exposure skews toward a small cluster of frequently-hit states. The three states absorbing the largest share of events are Texas (241 events, 7 fatalities), Kentucky (193 events, 1 fatalities), Kansas (149 events, 0 fatalities), a mix of underlying hazard climatology and how many people live in the exposed corridor. At the other end, states such as Utah, District of Columbia, Arizona report far fewer events, a meaningfully lower-frequency pattern there, though local vigilance still matters.

The NOAA file shows a substantial human toll without entering PlainHazard's highest band: 33 fatalities and 605 injuries across 2,483 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.

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.