Costliest Atlantic Hurricanes, Damage Normalized
About This Dataset
Costliest Atlantic Hurricanes, Damage Normalized
Normalized damage restates each storm's bill as if it struck today, adjusting for inflation, population growth and the value of property now standing in its path. It is the only way to compare a storm from the 1920s with one from last year, and it reorders the ranking considerably.
Analysis
Katrina (2005) normalizes to $226.21 billion, against $125 billion in the dollars of its own year. 4 of the 12 storms here struck before 2000 - adjustment is what puts them on the chart. The largest gap between normalized and nominal damage belongs to Katrina, at $101 billion. The smallest figure on this chart is $48.33 billion.
Key Findings
🏆
Katrina (2005) leads in Normalized Damage (US$ billions) with 226.21 in 2026.
📊
Average Normalized Damage (US$ billions) in 2026: 91 · median: 67.
↔️
Gap in 2026: Katrina (2005) is 4.7× larger than Hugo (1989).
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Wikipedia, List of costliest Atlantic hurricanes
- Coverage
- 12 entities · 2026 · 12 observations
- Measure
- Normalized Damage (US$ billions)
- Last updated
- 7 September 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
How the figures are calculated
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value in 2026.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
Related Charts
More statistics on similar topics