Method: how we line up FEMA declarations with hail records
Every county page under disaster declarations joins two public files that were never built to be read together. This page says what each file holds, what we keep, how we match them and what the match cannot prove.
The two files
- Declarations. OpenFEMA's Disaster Declarations Summaries dataset has one row for each county named in a declaration. Our pull covers declarations dated January 1, 2014 or later, up to September 15, 2026, for ten states: Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota.
- Storms. NOAA's Storm Events Database lists hail, thunderstorm wind and tornado reports by date and county. We use January 2014 to June 2026, the same record behind our hail history pages.
What a declaration type means
| Code | Name | County rows in our file |
|---|---|---|
| DR | Major disaster declaration | 2,849 |
| EM | Emergency declaration | 503 |
| FM | Fire management assistance | 145 |
These are rows for the 3,497 county designations we matched to a county in our NOAA table, not distinct disasters.
Incident types in the file
| FEMA incident type | Our group | County rows |
|---|---|---|
| Severe Storm | storm, tornado and wind | 1,568 |
| Flood | flood | 831 |
| Severe Ice Storm | winter storm and ice | 570 |
| Fire | fire | 165 |
| Hurricane | storm, tornado and wind | 113 |
| Winter Storm | winter storm and ice | 109 |
| Snowstorm | winter storm and ice | 75 |
| Tornado | storm, tornado and wind | 63 |
| Straight-Line Winds | storm, tornado and wind | 3 |
We dropped 2,409 rows typed Biological. They are COVID-19 declarations, which named almost every county and say nothing about a roof. Rows for counties outside our NOAA table are not shown on county pages.
How the join works
- Counties are matched by FIPS code, the five-digit federal county number, so spelling differences between files cannot lose a county.
- Years. A declaration sits in the year its incident began, not the year it was declared. A winter storm that started on December 30 and was declared in January belongs to the earlier year. Ten county rows declared in January 2014 for a December 2013 incident are counted under 2014.
- Hail years. A year counts as a hail year when NOAA logged at least one day with hail of an inch or more in the county, the size the National Weather Service calls severe. We only compare full calendar years, 2014 to 2025.
- Overlay. For each declaration we check whether one of the county's ten biggest hail days, its eight strongest tornadoes or its strongest thunderstorm gusts falls between the incident start and end dates.
What the match cannot show
- A declaration names a whole county. It says nothing about which streets or houses were hit.
- FEMA's incident type does not separate hail from wind and rain, so we never call a declaration a hail declaration.
- The overlay uses only the biggest events we keep per county. A dash means none of those fell in the window, not that the incident was quiet.
- Declarations depend on the damage a state reports and the aid it requests, so counts compare counties better than they compare states.
- We do not show which assistance programs a declaration opened, because the pull does not carry that field.
Reading the county maps
Each dot on a county page is one NOAA report of hail of 1 inch or more inside the county outline during 2014 to June 2026. Yellow is 1 to 1.74 in, orange 1.75 to 2.74 in, red 2.75 in and up. The outline is the US Census cartographic boundary. FEMA declarations name whole counties, so they cannot be placed on the map. Where a county has more than 140 located reports, the 140 biggest are drawn.
Reading the charts and tables
Declarations are placed in the year the incident began, and the charts split them into storm, tornado and wind versus flood, winter storm and fire. The hail series counts days with hail of 1 in or more and covers January to June in 2026. In the declaration table, the NOAA column lists events from the county's ten biggest hail days, its strongest tornadoes and its strongest gusts that fall inside the incident dates. A dash means none of those fell there, not that nothing happened. The days-after-prior column counts from the previous declaration's declared date.
Questions
Is a FEMA declaration needed to file a hail claim?
No. A homeowners claim is filed under your own policy and rests on the damage. A declaration is a federal record about a county and an incident period.
Why do some hail years have no declaration?
FEMA declarations are tied to events big enough to ask for federal help. Most hail days never reach that level, so a county can have severe hail in a year the federal list ignores.
Why is the incident type never 'hail'?
FEMA files hail under Severe Storm together with wind and rain. We therefore never say a declaration was for hail; we only show hail days next to it by date.
How often is this updated?
The FEMA file runs to September 15, 2026. The NOAA record runs to June 2026. We refresh both and add county pages every week.
Sources: OpenFEMA data sets, NOAA Storm Events Database. Both are public domain. Back to the hub, or read insurer claim deadlines by state.