Damaging weather conditions in the United States: A selection of data quality and monitoring issues

The limitations of observational data available for the study of damaging w eather conditions (e.g., storms and extreme temperature events) are discuss ed. Crop and property insurance loss records are advocated as a potential s upplement to traditional weather observations, as they integrate specific i nformation about the spatial dimension of damaging weather conditions and t he cost of damage they cause. Insurance loss data may also be analyzed in c ombination with meteorological data sets to derive indicator variables for the detection of damaging weather events. Two sets of insurance data are described. One record provides adjusted prop erty losses associated with "catastrophic" weather events since 1949, and t he other is an index of the amount of crop-hail losses per year since 1948. Additionally, an example of the benefits of the combination of insurance a nd meteorological data is presented through a selection of results from a r ecent study of freezing temperatures in the southeastern United States and associated insurance claims related to pipe bursting. If insurance data are to be applied in the future in similar studies of dam aging weather conditions, it is essential that the insurance industry conti nues to collect and adjust loss data and periodically confirm that adjustme nt factors are temporally consistent.