What business disruption comes from extreme weather?
Reported monetary losses and the events associated with them.
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The answer
In the national snapshot, 6.8% of businesses reported monetary losses from extreme weather during the preceding six months. The follow-up identifies event types among businesses reporting losses; businesses can select more than one event.
How to read this finding
The percentage experiencing a loss differs from the distribution of event types among affected businesses. The weather answers report experiences, not a model of future hazards or the amount of damage.
Core snapshot: reference September 7–20, 2026; collected September 21–October 4; released October 8. Individual question wording governs the two-week, six-month lookback, or six-month outlook window.
Did extreme weather cause monetary losses?
In the last six months, did this business experience any monetary losses due to an extreme weather event (for example, hurricane, flood, drought, or heat wave)?
| Response | Businesses (%) | Standard error (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 6.8 | 0.13 |
| No | 93.2 | 0.13 |
Which weather events caused those losses?
What type of extreme weather event caused the monetary losses?
| Response | Businesses (%) | Standard error (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire | 7.6 | 0.79 |
| Earthquake | 0.4 | 0.14 |
| Hurricane | 6.1 | 0.57 |
| Tornado | 6.4 | 0.57 |
| Flood | 18.1 | 0.94 |
| Drought | 8.4 | 0.65 |
| High winds | 21.2 | 1.22 |
| Severe storm/hail | 26.0 | 1.16 |
| Snow/blizzard/ice | 10.8 | 1.05 |
| Extreme temperature (heat or cold) | 45.9 | 1.56 |
| Other (please describe) | 9.7 | 0.93 |
Multiple responses are possible; percentages need not add to 100.
A practical business conversation
Owners can use the question structure to review continuity needs: record protection, communication, supplier disruption, and recovery planning. AI could be one option in a broader plan, but this survey does not evaluate AI-based resilience tools.
Use the loss questions to discuss continuity while preserving the affected-business denominator.
What this evidence cannot establish
No loss amounts, address-level hazard estimates, insurance payouts, or AI-caused resilience benefits are measured here. The weather context should not be presented as an AI outcome.