IStock Photo 9461826 © kavram

Our roiling, windy, gaseous planet presents hazards of all kinds, and it’s not always clear what has caused what. So the National Weather Service takes it upon itself to define just what it means by weather-related fatalities. Flooding caused by hurricanes makes the list, as do lightning, extreme heat and cold, dust storms and drought, mud slides and volcanic ash. Fire weather is in. Earthquakes, though, and apparently lava flows, are not.

NWS data enables ranking states by deadliest weather based on annual weather fatalities occurring between 1999 and the end of 2008. Over that span, thanks (but no thanks) to Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana ranks first: the odds a person in Louisiana will be killed by hazardous weather in a year are 1 in 49,330. Katrina, which the NWS blames for more than 800 weather-related deaths in Louisiana in 2005, is a statistical outlier; nonetheless, the tragedy puts Louisiana first over that span.

The state in which a person is least likely to be killed by hazardous weather? The one that provided the setting for “The Perfect Storm”: Massachusetts (the center of that disaster was well offshore). The odds a person in Massachusetts will die from the state’s weather in a year are 1 in 4,579,000.

In general, despite the potential rip currents and tsunamis near the coasts (yes, the Weather Service counts those), when it comes to weather fatalities the central swath of the country tops the list. The safest 15 states include much of the Northeast (New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts), as well as the west coast (California, Washington, and Oregon).

From a climatological standpoint, this makes sense. In 2008, the deadliest weather phenomena were tornadoes, which caused 124 deaths, flooding (82), and extreme heat (71), all of which need warm, moist air. The Gulf of Mexico provides the center of the country with all a storm could desire. The Northeast and Northwest are generally too cool or too arid for violent storms. What’s more, people are less likely to die from cold than heat. In 2008, extreme cold killed just 44 people, and winter storms killed just 21.

Will the shifting weather patterns associated with global climate change affect these odds? Generally, scientists expect that the middle parts of the United States will experience more precipitation, more evaporation, and drier soil. The Environmental Protection Agency suggests that Alaska—where the odds of being killed by hazardous weather ranked third at 1 in 116,900—may warm up the most.