What's Inside DisasterAWARE's Enhanced Historical Hazard Data, Hazard by Hazard

DisasterAWARE's historical hazard archive holds nearly 680,000 records across about 30 hazard types, from earthquakes and floods to wildfires, tornadoes and tropical cyclones. Every record carries the basics: what happened, where, when, how severe the alert was and, for most, the alert footprint. For the hazards where authoritative post-event data exists, records also carry an enhancement: the surveys, gauges, radar, claims and agency records that describe what actually happened on the ground.

This guide walks through those enhancements one hazard at a time: what each one contains, which source it comes from, where in the world it applies, and how far back it goes. The short version: tornado, hail, wind and flood enhancements come from US agency data and apply to the United States; earthquake and tropical cyclone enhancements come from global catalogs and apply worldwide; wildfire burned-area detail is almost entirely US, while every wildfire record worldwide states what kind of evidence it rests on.

What "enhanced" means

A hazard record starts life as an alert: a National Weather Service warning, a USGS earthquake notice, a satellite fire detection, a tropical cyclone advisory. Enhancement adds structured blocks of evidence to that record after the event. Each block is attached to the record it describes, so a single tornado warning can carry its damage survey, its hail and wind reports and its storm classification together.

Three conventions hold across every enhancement:

• Each block names its sources and what they returned. A source can have data for the event, have nothing for it, or be unavailable, and the record says which. "No damage survey found" and "no survey exists for this period" are different answers, and the record tells you which one you are looking at.
• Missing means null, never zero. An unreported damage figure, an unmeasured hail size or a blank wind radius is null, so averages are not dragged down by invented zeros.
• Shared evidence is counted once. One damage survey or storm report often touches several warning records. Every record lists the evidence that touches it, and exactly one record "owns" each item, so totals summed across records do not double-count.

Tornado

Coverage: United States. Tornado records from 2014; damage-survey evidence mainly from 2017 onward.

The archive holds about 22,500 tornado records, and 98% of them carry the tornado enhancement. These are warning-grain records, mostly NWS tornado warnings and the confirmed touchdowns under them, so one tornado can appear on several records; they are not a list of distinct tornadoes. Each enhanced record carries:

• NWS damage survey paths and points from the Damage Assessment Toolkit: path start and end, length, width, EF rating, the surveyors' estimated peak wind, injuries and deaths, and survey comments, plus the individual damage points along the track.
• NOAA Storm Events rows for the tornado: rating, length, width, direct and indirect deaths and injuries, and property and crop damage.
• Storm reports: NWS Local Storm Reports and Storm Prediction Center reports, with SPC copies of NWS reports flagged so each report counts once.
• Path length with its source (survey geometry, survey attribute or the SPC track), on more than 12,600 records.
• Touchdown status, separating confirmed touchdowns from warnings with no confirmed tornado. Confirmed tornadoes that no NWS tornado warning covered are named that way rather than folded into a warning.

Example: the warning records for the Greenfield, Iowa tornado of May 21, 2024 carry the NWS survey path for the EF4: 43 miles long, up to 1,600 yards wide, surveyors' estimated peak wind 180 mph, 5 deaths and 35 injuries. The same path is listed on each warning it touched, and one record owns it for counting.

Hail, damaging wind and severe storms

Coverage: United States. Radar hail swaths from late 2019; storm reports and warnings across the enhanced years.

Severe thunderstorm records (more than 98,000 storm records in all) and tornado records share three enhancement blocks, carried by nearly 64,000 storm records and almost every tornado record:

• Hail: ground reports with size, measured or estimated qualifier and reporter; NOAA MRMS MESH radar hail swaths as polygons at the 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2 and 2.5 inch thresholds insurers use; the radar-estimated size at the record's location; the hail size forecast in the warning; and a single best estimate that says whether it is a measured report, an estimated report or a radar value.
• Wind: gust reports labelled measured or estimated, damage reports, and NWS damage-survey wind points with damage indicator, degree of damage and the estimated wind. Survey winds are engineering estimates from damage, kept in their own field and never mixed with measured gusts.
• Severe convective storm classification: whether hail of 1 inch or more, wind of 58 mph or more, or a tornado was actually observed, which sub-perils were present, and the source of each maximum. Warning tags are kept as forecast context and never count as observations.

Where radar or reports from the US network are used on an event just across the border, the record flags it as US-network evidence. Thousands of US marine warning records carry the same hail and wind blocks.

Example: a severe thunderstorm record in southeastern Colorado on September 20, 2026 (local time) carries a measured 4.0-inch (softball-size) hail report near Chivington, measured 3.1-inch hail near Brandon, eight radar swath polygons at thresholds from 1 to 2 inches, and the warning that covered them.

Flood

Coverage: the United States and its territories. Flood enhancement from late 2007.

About 84,800 of the archive's nearly 129,000 flood records carry the flood enhancement, more than 98% of them in the United States, and almost all the rest in US territories such as Puerto Rico. US flood records begin as NWS flood products (flash flood, areal, river and coastal warnings), so the enhancement adds what was measured and reported on the ground:

• River gauges: USGS gauges in the warning area with peak stage, peak time, flood stage and NWS flood category. More than 78,000 records carry the greatest gauge height above flood stage, and nearly 12,000 reached Major flood category.
• Alert history: every NWS alert that makes up the flood, with issue and expiry times.
• Storm reports and road closures, with flood reports and heavy-rain reports counted separately.
• Measured water depth from USGS high-water marks and storm-tide sensor peaks, as height above ground.
• Modeled water depth from NWS inundation mapping libraries at river gauges, always labelled as modeled.
• NOAA tide gauges for coastal flood and storm surge warnings, as height above high tide.
• NOAA Storm Events deaths, injuries and property and crop damage for the matched events.
• FEMA flood insurance (NFIP) claims in the area and dates of the flood, and FEMA individual assistance for the disaster declaration. Claims are located only to about 11 km by FEMA, and assistance figures are declaration-wide, and the record says both.

Outside the United States and its territories, flood records carry this enhancement only where a US flood alert reaches across the border; many carry a modeled exposure assessment instead (see below). The geometry on a flood record is the alert area, not a mapped flood extent.

Example: a flash flood warning for Alleghany, Ashe, Watauga and Wilkes counties, North Carolina, during Hurricane Helene in September 2024 carries five river gauges, two of them at Major flood (the Watauga River near Sugar Grove crested 23.6 feet above flood stage), a USGS high-water mark showing 3.75 feet of water above ground, a modeled depth of 5.5 feet, three road closures and 322 NFIP flood insurance claims.

Tropical cyclones

Coverage: worldwide, every basin. Enhancement from the 1998 season.

Nearly 2,000 of the archive's roughly 3,000 tropical cyclone records are enhanced from IBTrACS v04r01 (NOAA/NCEI), the international best-track archive. An enhanced storm carries:

• The full best track: position, sustained wind, central pressure, storm nature and agency status at each point, with distance to land, and 34-, 50- and 64-knot wind radii by quadrant where the agencies published them.
• The wind averaging basis for each wind value (1-minute or 10-minute, and which agency), so winds from different basins are not compared as if they were the same measure.
• Storm summary: peak Saffir-Simpson category, peak wind, minimum pressure, duration, hours at hurricane and major-hurricane strength, and track length.
• Every tropical landfall with time, position, wind, country and state. More than 950 enhanced records carry at least one landfall. Landfalls are derived from the track, so a crossing of a very small island can be missed and counts are a minimum.
• NWS post-storm station reports for storms that affected the United States or its territories, from 2023: station rainfall totals, storm-tide water levels above high tide, peak gusts with anemometer height, and lowest station pressure.

Example: Hurricane Helene (2024) carries its 45-point track, a Category 4 peak of 120 knots and 939 mb, its landfall in Florida at 120 knots, and the NWS post-storm reports from 12 forecast offices, including 30.78 inches of rain at Busick, North Carolina, and storm tide 9.3 feet above high tide at Cedar Key, Florida.

Earthquake

Coverage: worldwide. Records from 1999.

The archive holds about 74,000 earthquake records worldwide. More than 12,700 of them, the events USGS processed with ShakeMap (95% of them magnitude 4.5 or above), carry the earthquake enhancement:

• USGS ShakeMap: maximum Modified Mercalli intensity, the highest peak-ground-acceleration contour level, and the acceleration contour polygons, the shaking footprint rather than a point.
• The USGS authoritative event: current epicentre, depth, time, magnitude and magnitude type, so a record created from a preliminary alert carries the revised USGS solution alongside.
• NOAA NCEI Significant Earthquake Database impacts where NCEI lists the event: deaths, injuries, houses damaged and destroyed, damage in dollars, a link to any tsunami, and a flag when figures include secondary effects such as tsunami or landslides. More than 570 records carry a death toll from NCEI.
• The USGS PAGER alert level where USGS issued one, kept as a modeled alert level, not a count.

Example: the magnitude 7.8 earthquake north of Ende, Flores, Indonesia, in August 2026 carries its ShakeMap (maximum intensity 8.6, acceleration contours up to 0.5 g across 11 levels), PAGER alert orange, and NCEI's record of 156 deaths, 1,620 injuries and 5,099 houses destroyed.

Wildfire

Coverage: every wildfire record worldwide states its evidence basis; burned area and fire detail are almost entirely United States, from 1999.

The archive holds nearly 130,000 wildfire records, and every one says what it is based on: an agency-confirmed fire incident, a satellite heat detection, a satellite burned-area product, an unconfirmed report, a prescribed burn, or a product that is not a fire at all (such as fire-weather alerts). Confirmed incidents and satellite detections make up the great majority. That matters, because a satellite detection is a potential fire, not a confirmed one.

More than 75,000 wildfire records, almost all of them US fires since 1999, carry the fire enhancement, joined to the US interagency fire record (NIFC/WFIGS and its predecessors). Depending on what the agencies reported for each fire, a record carries:

• Fire identity: fire name and national incident ID, and how the record was matched to the fire, with a confidence score.
• Final burned size in acres, with the source and date of the figure. Where the agency's reported size and the latest mapped perimeter disagree sharply, the record shows both.
• Perimeters: the final mapped perimeter and, where available, the dated perimeters showing the fire's growth, with the largest one-day growth.
• Timeline: discovery, containment and fire-out dates, fire-days, and cause.
• Incident reports (ICS-209): structures destroyed and threatened, injuries and deaths, peak personnel, and suppression cost (kept separate from damage).
• NASA FIRMS satellite detections inside the fire's area during the record's dates: daily counts, sensors and peak fire radiative power.
• Smoke linked to the fire: the smoke events the fire fed, smoke days, peak density and the worst air-quality reading (preliminary AirNow data).

Example: the 2026 Wildhorse fire in Idaho carries a final size of 107,563 acres from its mapped perimeter, dated perimeters through its growth (largest one-day growth 16,623 acres), 1,135 satellite detections, and 27 linked smoke events over 15 days, with air quality reaching Very Unhealthy on preliminary AirNow readings.

Smoke

Coverage: North America (mainly the United States, Canada and Mexico). From 2008.

The archive holds nearly 35,000 smoke events. Each one is built from daily NOAA Hazard Mapping System satellite smoke outlines. Each carries its smoke density and dates, and, where available:

• Smoke density (light, medium, heavy) by day, first and last observed date, and area-days.
• Ground air quality from EPA AirNow monitors inside the smoke, on about 9,900 events, almost all from 2014 on: the highest 24-hour PM2.5 reading and its US EPA Air Quality Index category. AirNow readings are preliminary, unvalidated data. Ground readings decide the category where monitors exist.
• Source fires: the wildfires feeding the smoke, with name, incident ID and size.

Exposure, and the hazards without a dedicated enhancement

Many records across hazard types, worldwide, carry a modeled exposure assessment: estimated population, households, schools, hospitals and capital value inside the alert footprint. It is an estimate of what lay inside the alert area, not a count of observed impact, and a large precautionary warning yields a large figure.

Landslide, volcano, tsunami, winter storm, extreme temperature and drought records carry the core record and, where modeled, exposure, but no hazard-specific enhancement.

Data quality built into the dataset

• Exercise and test records are withdrawn. Drills and test messages are not presented as hazard events.
• Records describe ended events. A hazard still active when the archive is built is held back until it has ended.
• Every measurement says what kind it is: measured or estimated hail, measured or estimated gust, survey wind versus anemometer gust, modeled versus measured flood depth, 1-minute versus 10-minute cyclone wind.
• Alert area is not event area. The area on a record is the alert footprint. Burned area, flood depth and shaking footprint live in their own enhancement fields.
• Records are alerts, not deduplicated events. One flood or tornado can span several records; counts of records are never presented as counts of events.

Enhancements at a glance

How to access the data

The archive is served through the Historical Hazards API: filter by hazard type, date, country, state, county, radius or containment test, and by enhancement values such as EF rating, hail size, gauge category, landfall country, magnitude, intensity or final acres. Records come back as full records with every enhancement block or as a compact list for analysis. See the API documentation for every parameter and field.

Licensed extracts are available through Historical Event Intelligence, and the same archive can feed AI agents and analytics platforms through AI & Analytics Intelligence. Free sample datasets for tornado, hail, tropical cyclone and earthquake are on the sample datasets page, and each hazard's data page has field-level detail: tornado, severe convective storm, flood, hurricane, earthquake and wildfire.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "enhanced" mean in DisasterAWARE's historical hazard data?
An enhanced record carries structured post-event evidence on top of the original alert: damage surveys and storm reports for tornadoes, radar hail swaths and reports for hail, river gauges, high-water marks and flood insurance claims for floods, best tracks and landfalls for tropical cyclones, ShakeMap and impact records for earthquakes, and burned size, perimeters and incident reports for wildfires. Each block names its sources and whether they had data.

Is the enhanced data global?
It depends on the hazard. Earthquake and tropical cyclone enhancements come from global catalogs (USGS, NOAA NCEI, IBTrACS) and apply worldwide. Tornado, hail, wind and flood enhancements come from US agency data and apply to the United States (flood also covers US territories). Wildfire burned-area detail is almost entirely US, while every wildfire record worldwide states its evidence basis. Smoke covers North America.

How far back does the historical hazard data go?
Earthquake records run from 1999, tropical cyclone enhancement from the 1998 season, wildfire burned-area detail from 1999, flood enhancement from late 2007, smoke from 2008, and tornado records from 2014, with NWS damage-survey evidence mainly from 2017 onward and radar hail swaths from late 2019.

Are the tornado records a count of tornadoes?
No. Tornado records are warning-grain: mostly NWS tornado warnings and the confirmed touchdowns under them, so one tornado can appear on several records. Each record carries the survey paths and reports that touch it, and exactly one record owns each piece of evidence, so totals summed across records count each path and report once.

Does the flood data include flood depth?
Yes, labelled by method. Measured depth comes from USGS high-water marks and storm-tide sensors as height above ground; modeled depth comes from NWS inundation mapping libraries at river gauges and is always marked as modeled. The geometry on a flood record is the alert area, not a mapped flood extent.

How do I get the data?
Through the Historical Hazards API, or as licensed extracts through Historical Event Intelligence. Free samples for tornado, hail, tropical cyclone and earthquake are on the sample datasets page.

Related Reading

• How DisasterAWARE Reconstructs Historic Hurricanes
• Historical Event Intelligence
• Flood Data: Gauges, Reports and Exposure
• Wildfire Data: Acreage, Perimeters and Impacts

Sources: DisasterAWARE Historical Hazards API, queried 2026-10-14; DisasterAWARE Historical Hazards API documentation. Enhancement sources as named in each section: NWS (Damage Assessment Toolkit, Local Storm Reports, warnings, post-storm reports, inundation mapping), NOAA Storm Prediction Center, NOAA NCEI (Storm Events, Significant Earthquake Database, IBTrACS v04r01), NOAA MRMS, NOAA Hazard Mapping System, NOAA tide gauges, USGS (gauges, high-water marks, ShakeMap, PAGER), FEMA (NFIP claims, Individual Assistance), NIFC/WFIGS and the US interagency fire record, ICS-209 incident reports, NASA FIRMS, EPA AirNow and its partner federal, state, local and tribal air quality agencies (preliminary monitor data). This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA.