Five Things to Know About Climate Change in 2025

In 2025, the U.S. experienced 23 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters costing $115 billion, ranking it the third-highest year on record. The year was dominated by a record 21 billion-dollar severe storm events and the costliest wildfire in U.S. history, the Los Angeles wildfires. Since 1980, the frequency of such disasters has surged, with the average time between events dropping from 82 days in the 1980s to just 10 days in 2025.

• The year 2025 ranks as the third-highest year for billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the U.S., following 2023 and 2024. There were 23 such events in 2025, resulting in an estimated 276 fatalities and total damages of $115 billion.
• The Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025 were the most expensive event of the year and the costliest wildfire ever recorded in the U.S., with damages totaling $61.2 billion—approximately double the previous record. Human-caused warming is estimated to have made the fire weather conditions 6% more intense and 35% more likely.
• Severe storms set a new record in 2025 with 21 billion-dollar disasters, largely due to tornado outbreaks in the central U.S. during spring and summer. Other significant events included a heat-driven drought in the western U.S. and deadly flash flooding in the Texas Hill Country in July 2025, though the latter did not reach the $1 billion damage threshold.
• There is a long-term trend of increasing disaster frequency and decreasing time between events in the U.S. Since 1980, the U.S. has had 426 billion-dollar disasters costing over $3.1 trillion. The average annual number of events rose from about three in the 1980s to 20 in the last decade (2016-2025), and the average time between disasters fell from 82 days in the 1980s to 10 days in 2025.

APA

Climate Central (2026). Five Things to Know About Climate Change in 2025. https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2025-in-review

Chicago

Climate Central. Five Things to Know About Climate Change in 2025. 2026. https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2025-in-review.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Central |title=Five Things to Know About Climate Change in 2025 |date=8 January 2026 |url=https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2025-in-review |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatecentral2026five, author = {{Climate Central}}, title = {{Five Things to Know About Climate Change in 2025}}, institution = {Climate Central}, year = {2026}, month = jan, url = {https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2025-in-review}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }