The deadliest weather in America doesn't come with a siren
Tornadoes get the headlines. Across nearly three decades of NOAA records, heat has killed almost three times as many people.
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Ask someone to name the deadliest kind of severe weather and most people will say tornadoes. That makes sense: tornadoes are sudden, violent, and easy to film. But the records tell a different story.
NOAA’s Storm Events Database has tracked the full range of weather hazards since 1996. Since then it has recorded 22,713 deaths. Heat and excessive heat account for 6,313 of them, about 28%. Tornadoes account for 2,176.
It’s getting worse, or we’re counting better, or both
Heat deaths in the database have climbed sharply. From 2015 to 2024 NOAA recorded 3,666 of them, nearly triple the 1,321 recorded from 2005 to 2014. The worst year on record was 2023, with 879.
One caveat applies here. A death only appears in this database if it gets attributed to a weather event, and attribution practices vary across places and over time. Some of this rise reflects better counting. Even so, the trend is consistent with what public-health agencies have been reporting.
Where and when
Heat deaths cluster where you’d expect: the desert Southwest and the peak of summer. July alone accounts for more than half of them.
What works
Unlike a tornado, a heat wave arrives with days of warning, which makes most heat deaths preventable. The approaches public-health agencies point to are simple ones. They include cooling centers people can actually reach, checking on neighbors who live alone, keeping water and shade available for outdoor workers, and treating heat warnings with the same seriousness as a tornado warning.
Want to dig in yourself? Every number in this story comes from the Storm Desk. Switch the event type to “Heat” to see the rest.