Hurricanes are the costliest natural disasters in the United States. Understanding how both hurricane frequencies and intensities vary from year to year as well as how this is manifested in changes in damages that occur is a topic of great interest to meteorologists, public and private decision makers, and the general public alike. Previous research into long-term trends in hurricane-caused damage along the U.S. coast has suggested that damage has been quickly increasing within the last two decades, even after considering inflation. However, to best capture the year-to-year variability in tropical cyclone damage, consideration must also be given toward two additional factors: coastal population changes and changes in wealth. Both population and wealth have increased dramatically over the last several decades and act to enhance the recent hurricane damages preferentially over those occurring previously. More appropriate trends in the United States hurricane damages can be calculated when a normali... Abstract Hurricanes are the costliest natural disasters in the United States. Understanding how both hurricane frequencies and intensities vary from year to year as well as how this is manifested in changes in damages that occur is a topic of great interest to meteorologists, public and private decision makers, and the general public alike. Previous research into long-term trends in hurricane-caused damage along the U.S. coast has suggested that damage has been quickly increasing within the last two decades, even after considering inflation. However, to best capture the year-to-year variability in tropical cyclone damage, consideration must also be given toward two additional factors: coastal population changes and changes in wealth. Both population and wealth have increased dramatically over the last several decades and act to enhance the recent hurricane damages preferentially over those occurring previously. More appropriate trends in the United States hurricane damages can be calculated when a normali...