The Biden administration is launching a new website to help communities see extreme weather and other hazards they are facing as a result of climate change. 

Kentuckians have seen the effect of natural disasters firsthand in recent months, with tornadoes that swept through western Kentucky last December and the historic flooding that devastated eastern parts of the state in July. 

What You Need To Know

  • According to data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 20 largest climate-related disasters last year claimed hundreds of lives and racked up more than $150 billion in damages 

  • The Biden administration is launching a new website to help communities see extreme weather and other hazards they are facing as a result of climate change

  • The site builds on the Biden administration’s efforts to combat the climate crisis

  • Earlier this year, the Biden Administration rolled out heat.gov to highlight the growing problem of extreme high temperatures

“Kentucky has also experienced as many billion dollar disasters in the last 3 years as they did during the entire 1980s,” explained NOAA administrator Rick Spinard. 

The new climate portal gives location-based information on extreme heat, drought, wildfires and other climate impacts. 

“People can start to get to this vast amount of data, the vast knowledge about climate change and impacts, but also understand how it intersects with things like social vulnerability where the communities are that are going to be most effected by the impacts of climate change,” Spinard said. 

The website includes a dashboard to monitor weather threats in real time, assessments of the risks climate change poses to communities and details of funding opportunities and other federal resources to address the effects of climate change. 

Earlier this year, the Biden administration rolled out heat.gov "to provide the public and decision-makers with clear, timely and science-based information to understand and reduce the health risks of extreme heat," the NOAA said in a statement at the time.