Charlottesville city, Virginia: hazard history

FEMA declared 13 disasters that named Charlottesville city between 1972 and 2026.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3631 2026 · Winter Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• DR-4512 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3448 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• EM-3403 2018 · Hurricane · Hurricane Florence
• EM-3359 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4072 2012 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Straight-line Winds
• DR-1874 2009 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm
• EM-3240 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1491 2003 · Hurricane · Hurricane Isabel
• DR-1135 1996 · Hurricane · Hurricane Fran And Associated Severe Storm Cond

Not counted above: 3 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Virginia. 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. A storm filed against a forecast zone is counted in every county that zone covers, with the whole storm's damage; do not add these figures across counties.

NOAA storm event records in Charlottesville city each year. The busiest year was 2013, with 25 records.

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

Costliest records

1. High Wind · Sep 18, 2003$2.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 65 injuries · NOAA record 5335426
2. Tornado · May 13, 2000$500K
   NOAA name: Charlottesville city · 1 injury · NOAA record 5144194
3. High Wind · Jan 14, 2006$100K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5486037
4. Wildfire · Mar 5, 2007$75K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 18625
5. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 23, 1998$50K
   NOAA name: Charlottesville city · NOAA record 5658277

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 $281K on 44 claims in Charlottesville city from 1979 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 Charlottesville city — 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 against a county and others against an NWS forecast zone, and publishes a code for both. Records are counted as Charlottesville city by that code — county records by the county's own FIPS code, zone records through the National Weather Service's published list of which counties each zone covers. No name matching is involved. Of 439 records, 76 were filed against this county and 363 against a forecast zone covering it. A zone storm is counted in every county its zone covers, and its damage figure is the whole storm's, not this county's share — NOAA does not publish that split. So these figures describe this county; they must not be added up across counties. Left out: 4% of Virginia's NOAA records, which are marine zones or zones NWS does not map to a county.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.