PlainHazard

National ranking · NOAA Storm Events

Deadliest U.S. states for severe weather

U.S. states and territories ranked by storm-related fatalities from NOAA-recorded severe weather, 2015–2025. Arizona has recorded the most.

Arizona
Most storm deaths
3,414
Arizona fatalities
12,810
Fatalities nationwide
2015–2025
NOAA coverage

How concentrated is the toll

Arizona accounts for 27% of all NOAA-recorded storm fatalities among the 56 states and territories in this ranking, and the top three states combined, Arizona, Texas, Nevada, account for 43%. NOAA's storm-related fatality count includes both direct deaths, such as drowning or debris strikes, and indirect deaths, such as heart attacks during cleanup, attributed during its damage-survey process.

27%
of nationwide storm fatalities are in Arizona alone
43%
of fatalities concentrated in just the top 3 states
56
states and territories covered in this ranking

A raw fatality count is not a per-capita risk measure; see 'What this ranking can't tell you' below.

Most Disasters Most Damage Deadliest Most Injuries Most Major

Top 12 states by storm-related fatalities

NOAA-recorded direct and indirect storm deaths, 2015–2025

fatalities

What this shows Arizona has recorded the most storm-related fatalities of any state over the 2015–2025 NOAA window.

Source NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database As of 2015–2025

The full ranking

Storm fatalities, injuries, and property damage by state, 2015–2025.

# State FatalitiesInjuriesProperty Damage
1 Arizona AZ 3,414 398 $443.7M
2 Texas TX 1,171 3,931 $71.4B
3 Nevada NV 952 191 $220.0M
4 California CA 830 1,557 $22.3B
5 Florida FL 797 786 $58.8B
6 Kentucky KY 348 1,051 $259.5M
7 Oregon OR 327 137 $4.0B
8 North Carolina NC 324 261 $6.0B
9 Tennessee TN 249 769 $2.7B
10 Missouri MO 234 2,560 $4.8B
11 New York NY 225 195 $1.1B
12 Wisconsin WI 217 445 $865.1M
13 Louisiana LA 210 515 $37.6B
14 Puerto Rico PR 200 139 $19.1B
15 Alabama AL 191 606 $548.4M
16 Illinois IL 180 539 $2.1B
17 Pennsylvania PA 159 604 $722.0M
18 Indiana IN 151 440 $371.7M
19 Georgia GA 148 660 $3.8B
20 Mississippi MS 146 858 $1.1B
21 Oklahoma OK 142 1,449 $1.2B
22 Guam GU 139 347 $6.1B
23 South Carolina SC 137 387 $915.9M
24 Hawaii HI 137 86 $5.7B
25 Colorado CO 120 807 $5.5B
26 New Jersey NJ 115 702 $305.9M
27 Utah UT 108 238 $313.9M
28 Washington WA 104 158 $4.2B
29 Montana MT 104 160 $135.6M
30 New Mexico NM 102 395 $1.6B
31 Minnesota MN 86 275 $360.7M
32 Michigan MI 85 247 $2.3B
33 South Dakota SD 85 166 $265.2M
34 Ohio OH 82 508 $993.5M
35 Kansas KS 80 336 $371.4M
36 West Virginia WV 79 49 $347.4M
37 Virginia VA 79 259 $754.3M
38 Arkansas AR 70 639 $922.4M
39 Idaho ID 69 147 $535.8M
40 Maryland MD 66 128 $276.0M
41 Iowa IA 66 415 $1.2B
42 Wyoming WY 44 150 $117.6M
43 Nebraska NE 41 215 $1.6B
44 Alaska AK 35 26 $187.1M
45 North Dakota ND 31 77 $430.5M
46 Vermont VT 24 9 $235.6M
47 American Samoa AS 19 12 $82.7M
48 Massachusetts MA 18 62 $85.5M
49 New Hampshire NH 17 59 $102.3M
50 Connecticut CT 16 41 $81.6M
51 Maine ME 16 68 $238.7M
52 Rhode Island RI 8 20 $8.1M
53 District of Columbia DC 6 11 $31.2M
54 Delaware DE 5 146 $4.5M
55 U.S. Virgin Islands VI 2 0 $536.2K
56 Northern Mariana Islands MP 0 0 $0

Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database (2015-2025) NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database (2015-2025) Fatality counts include both direct and indirect storm-related deaths

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this ranking is drawn from 12,810 recorded storm fatalities across 56 states and territories, refreshed as of 2026-07-25. Read our methodology for how this data is sourced and verified.

What this ranking shows

This is a raw count of NOAA-recorded storm-related deaths per state, 2015-2025, no per-capita or per-event-count adjustment. Arizona alone accounts for 27% of the 12,810 total fatalities across all 56 states and territories in this window, and the top 3 states combined (Arizona, Texas, Nevada) account for 43%. NOAA's "storm-related" fatality count includes both direct deaths (struck by debris, drowning in flash floods) and indirect deaths (heart attacks during cleanup, traffic accidents in storm conditions) that NOAA's damage-survey process attributes to the event.

What this ranking can't tell you

A raw fatality count is not a per-capita risk measure, larger and more populous states naturally accumulate more total storm events and more opportunities for a fatal outcome over any fixed window, independent of how dangerous a single storm is to any one resident. This ranking also covers only "storm-related" deaths in NOAA's own Storm Events taxonomy (severe weather like tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, extreme heat/cold), it does not include wildfire, earthquake, or other FEMA-tracked disaster fatalities, which are counted separately elsewhere on this site. And the 2015-2025 window means a state with a single catastrophic pre-2015 event (a historic hurricane or flood) will not show that event's toll here.

Every figure on PlainHazard is rendered directly from FEMA federal disaster data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on FEMA federal disaster data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or national statistics report, or report a data error.