Have you ever wondered what month has the most disasters? Or maybe you’ve asked yourself what the safest month of the year is? Disasters occur year round. However, analyzing the data can reveal some interesting trends.
If Google search suggestions are a sign, no, you probably haven’t asked the above questions. Or maybe no one has bothered to dig through over 70 years of data to find out. Well, after countless hours, we’re just hoping no one has ever done it before.
At face value, the questions above seem like simple enough questions, but they require a bit of data analysis. We can track down the trends for the most dangerous month of the year by using the very long list of federally declared disasters for the United States. We will get to the answers below.
Since we are on the topic of disaster questions, here are some other questions you may be likely to ask…
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You may want to read the above articles, if you haven’t already. Planning for a power outage, severe weather, and communication alternatives can help with anything from storms to the zombie apocalypse. Disasters are bound to happen.
Many disasters run in seasons and geographic areas. You have tornado season in the Midwest; near the coasts you have hurricane season. You’ll want to know what disaster is most likely during a certain period in your geographic region. But it can also be useful to know what time of year has the most disasters overall. Taking all disasters into consideration, one month stands out with more frequently approved disaster declarations.
Basic criteria for determining the month with the most disaster declarations:
United States federal disaster declarations in the fifty United States and Washington D.C. from 1980 to 2021.
Removal of declarations for COVID-19 and Hurricane Katrina evacuations.
For a more detailed explanation of criteria, keep reading.
What month has the most disasters?
September has more disaster declarations than any other month of the year.
September is the month with the most disasters. It has 12.76% of all disasters recorded over the last several decades. This number is well above the 8.3% you would have if every month had the same number of disasters (1/12×100% =8.3%).
August and February both top 10% as well.
November and July are least likely to have a nationally declared disaster.
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| Month | Count of disasters | Percent |
| Jan | 3942 | 9.60% |
| Feb | 4175 | 10.16% |
| Mar | 3733 | 9.09% |
| Apr | 3602 | 8.77% |
| May | 3799 | 9.25% |
| Jun | 3117 | 7.59% |
| Jul | 1689 | 4.11% |
| Aug | 4470 | 10.88% |
| Sep | 5244 | 12.76% |
| Oct | 2899 | 7.06% |
| Nov | 1135 | 2.76% |
| Dec | 3277 | 7.98% |
| Grand Total | 41082 | 100.00% |
Rearranging the list from most likely to least likely month for a disaster declaration, we get a list that looks like this.
| Month | Number of Disasters |
|---|---|
| Sep | 5244 |
| Aug | 4470 |
| Feb | 4175 |
| Jan | 3942 |
| May | 3799 |
| Mar | 3733 |
| Apr | 3602 |
| Dec | 3277 |
| Jun | 3117 |
| Oct | 2899 |
| Jul | 1689 |
| Nov | 1135 |
What is the worst disaster in September?
As you can see from the data, most of the declarations come from hurricanes. There are a decent handful of severe storms (FEMAs catchall for multiple categories). Floods, fires, coastal storms, and tornados make an appearance too.
Many memorable hurricanes have made landfall and caused heavy destruction in September. Some of the most devastating September hurricanes include Florence, Floyd, Irma, Ivan, Rita, and Sally.
Additional rare federal declarations in September include earthquakes (2), mud/landslide (1), terrorist (1), and volcano (1) declarations.
The terrorist declaration is for the attack on the Pentagon in Arlington county, Virginia on September 11th. The New York terrorist attack was classified as fire and titled as “fire and explosion”. There was a volcanic eruption in 2014 in Hawaii.
What does this not show us?
It’s important to note that a disaster declaration does not include the number of deaths from an incident. This means you cannot say that January is more deadly than October.
As we have seen, large events like Covid and Hurricane Katrina can alter the data.
January and February rank higher on the list than I expected. Winter storms and ice storms occur across state lines, leaving large swaths of damage. Hurricanes’ widespread destruction also leads to many county declarations. The widespread nature of these storms can greatly hamper recovery efforts.
We will break down the results further and explore the most common disaster declarations for each month in future articles.
Detailed Criteria
The United States government keeps a running record of disaster declarations in the United States and several territories. At over 66,000 declarations since the 1950s, there are a lot to sort through.
COVID-19 & Hurricane Katrina Evacuations
There were 7,854 disaster declarations listed for the COVID-19 pandemic (more than double the amount of counties in the United States, which total 3,142). Most of these were in March and April of 2020.
While COVID-19 is definitely a disaster, the volume and data are not really applicable to this question.
Hurricane Katrina left a trail of destruction across seven states. There were over 3,000 declarations. However, 2,700 of them were specific to the evacuees and evacuations in dozens of different states. I removed these 2,700 declarations from the data as well, but left the 490 declarations specific to Hurricane Katrina in.
Removing these leaves us with 41,082 different disaster declarations.
How do federal disaster declarations work?
When a disaster occurs, the state identifies and assesses the damage.
The state government officials review the damage.
From there, the state governor decides if they have adequate resources to respond to the disaster.
If not, they’ll request a major disaster declaration from the president and specify the amount and type of federal assistance they need.
From there, the president reviews the request and determines what aid is needed. If he determines there is a need for federal assistance, a disaster is declared. FEMA then mobilizes funding, supplies, and personnel.
For more information on how a disaster is declared, you can go to How a Disaster Gets Declared | FEMA.gov
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