The U.S. storm belt, state by state

The storm-belt table

NOAA's Storm Events Database records the hail, tornado and thunderstorm wind events below for 2016 through 2025. The FEMA column counts major disaster declarations since fiscal year 2000 in FEMA's Disaster Declarations Summaries dataset.

What stands out

• Texas leads every NOAA column. Among these 22 states it has the most 1-inch hail (11,063), 2-inch hail (1,986), tornado events (1,244) and thunderstorm wind events (9,262) in the Storm Events Database window.
• Kansas is the runner-up for hail at both sizes, with 6,054 events of 1 inch or more and 838 of 2 inches or more.
• Mississippi is second for tornado events at 1,039, ahead of Oklahoma's 948 and Illinois's 875.
• Georgia is second for thunderstorm wind with 8,679 events, behind only Texas.
• Oklahoma has the most FEMA major disaster declarations in the table, 61 since fiscal year 2000, followed by Kansas at 51 and Kentucky at 50, per OpenFEMA.
• Colorado is the outlier. It ranks fifth for 1-inch hail yet has the fewest major disaster declarations here, 13, and seven of those were for fire.

What these numbers measure

NOAA counts are reports, organized by county. NCEI's FAQ says the National Weather Service collects event reports from emergency managers, law enforcement, SKYWARN spotters, NWS damage surveys, the insurance industry and the public, among others. Only weather strong enough to cause deaths, injuries, significant property damage or disruption to commerce, or that is otherwise unusual, makes it into Storm Data. A count is best read as how often damaging weather was documented in a state, not an exact tally of every storm.

One tornado can be several events. The same FAQ explains that a tornado crossing a county or state line is recorded as a separate segment, and it sends readers to the Storm Prediction Center's monthly counts for official state tornado totals.

Sizes and dollars are estimates. NCEI says hail sizes are assigned from each stone's appearance, that damage figures are broad estimates not adjusted for inflation, and that information from outside sources may not have been verified by the NWS.

FEMA declarations measure something else. FEMA's page on how a disaster gets declared says a governor must request the declaration and show the situation is beyond the capability of state and local governments, and that the President decides. So the FEMA column tracks events that went beyond state resources, including floods, fires and biological incidents, rather than storm frequency. Texas, first in every NOAA column, has 40 declarations, fewer than 12 other states in this table. OpenFEMA also notes its summaries are raw data "subject to a small percentage of human error" and that declarations for Tribal Nations are included in state data.

Licensing is state law

Each state writes its own rules for roofers, and they don't line up. Alabama's Home Builders Licensure Board licenses residential roofers once a job's cost exceeds $2,500, North Dakota requires a state contractor license when a job exceeds $4,000, and Kansas requires every roofing contractor to hold a registration certificate from the state Attorney General. The region profiles give a line on each state and link the National Roofing Directory's licensing pages for each state in the table.

The three region profiles

• Great Plains: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Colorado, where hail sets the pace.
• Gulf & Atlantic coast: Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas, where hurricanes drive many of the declarations.
• Midwest & mid-South: Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky.

Each profile links that state's find-a-roofer page, its page in the National Roofing Directory's Storm Center and its licensing page.

Frequently asked questions

Which storm-belt state records the most hail?

Texas, by a wide margin. NOAA's Storm Events Database records 11,063 hail events of 1 inch or larger there from 2016 through 2025, compared with 6,054 in Kansas.

Why does Mississippi record more tornado events than Oklahoma?

The table counts events in the Storm Events Database, and NCEI's FAQ says each county a tornado crosses is logged as a separate segment. Mississippi records 1,039 tornado events for 2016 through 2025 and Oklahoma 948; for official tornado counts by state, NCEI points to the Storm Prediction Center.

Why do some high-hail states have few disaster declarations?

A declaration depends on a governor's request, a finding that the damage is beyond state and local capability, and the President's decision, according to FEMA. Colorado records 3,832 hail events of 1 inch or larger but only 13 major disaster declarations since fiscal year 2000.

How current is the storm data?

NCEI's Storm Events Database home page says it currently holds data from January 1950 to May 2026. This table uses the ten complete years from 2016 through 2025 so every state is measured over the same window.