Harford County, Maryland: hazard history

FEMA declared 20 disasters that named Harford County between 1971 and 2026.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3634 2026 · Winter Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• EM-3430 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4491 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• DR-4261 2016 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm
• EM-3349 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4091 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4038 2011 · Flood · Remnants Of Tropical Storm Lee
• EM-3335 2011 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irene
• DR-4034 2011 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irene
• DR-1910 2010 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storms And Snowstorms

Not counted above: 1 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Maryland. A declaration is a decision to send federal help, not a measure of how bad an event was. Records run from 1953. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

Records start in 1996. Damage is NOAA's estimate at the time, in nominal dollars, and is often rounded; it is not insurance claims data. A storm that crossed two NOAA zones in this county is recorded, and counted, once per zone.

NOAA storm event records in Harford County each year. The busiest year was 2019, with 115 records.

Years with no record are left out of the table, not shown as zero.

Costliest records

1. Tropical Storm · Sep 18, 2003$12.5M
   NOAA name: HARFORD · 5 injuries · NOAA record 5335408
2. Flash Flood · Sep 16, 1999$2.6M
   NOAA name: HARFORD · 15 injuries · NOAA record 5716696
3. Tropical Storm · Aug 27, 2011$2.0M
   NOAA name: HARFORD · NOAA record 342681
4. High Wind · Oct 29, 2012$1.1M
   NOAA name: HARFORD · 1 injury · NOAA record 417698
5. Tornado · Apr 22, 2023$1.0M
   NOAA name: HARFORD · NOAA record 1086641

Deadliest records

1. Flash Flood · Aug 31, 20182 deaths
   NOAA name: HARFORD · NOAA record 781091
2. Lightning · Jul 14, 20001 death
   NOAA name: HARFORD · NOAA record 5163923
3. Heat · Jul 2, 20021 death
   NOAA name: HARFORD · NOAA record 5308357
4. Winter Storm · Jan 25, 20041 death
   NOAA name: HARFORD · NOAA record 5381849
5. Heat · Aug 1, 20061 death
   NOAA name: HARFORD · NOAA record 5525706

Each line is one NOAA record, linked to its page at NOAA. One large storm can appear more than once if NOAA recorded it in several zones of this county. Dollars are nominal.

The National Flood Insurance Program paid $3.7M on 340 claims in Harford County from 1978 to 2024.

A count of claims, not a rate: NFIP publishes no count of insured homes beside it, and most flood damage is uninsured. Nominal dollars. Records run from 1978 to 2024; claims filed without a county code are not on any county page. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims.

A hazard vulnerability analysis rates each hazard for probability, impact, preparedness and response. Probability is the one column the county’s federal record can fill — NCEI storm events from 1996 to 2026 and FEMA declarations naming the county — and this is what it says for a facility here, on the 0–3 scale of the all-hazards structure surveyors expect. The other six columns are the facility’s own judgment about its building, and Calchis leaves them blank.

A dash means the record does not speak to that hazard; it is not a zero. Whether a finished document satisfies the CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule is the facility’s finding and its surveyor’s. Complete the HVA for a facility in Harford County — the technological, human and hazardous-materials rows, the six facility columns, the approval and the printed document — or read the sample analysis on that page first.

• Every figure is counted from public federal records held by Calchis: NOAA NCEI Storm Events, FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations, and FEMA NFIP claims. Nothing is modeled or estimated.
• NOAA files some events by county and others by forecast zone, and names both. Records are counted as Harford County when their NOAA name is this county's name, alone or with a word like “Coastal” or “Inland” in front. The county codes NOAA also publishes have not been loaded for Maryland yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: HARFORD, NORTHWEST HARFORD, SOUTHEAST HARFORD. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 4% of Maryland's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.