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Back in the spring, I received an email from a reader in Wise County who predicted that over the next 25 years Southwest Virginia would become a fashionable destination for climate refugees.
This suggestion is not without foundation. In 2022, an article from the Yale School of the Environment listed New England and Appalachia as likely places for those who want to move out of hotter, hurricane-risk places in the Southeast. A report that same year by the PLACE Initiative — Proactive Leadership Advocating for Climate and Equity — produced a map of potential “climate havens,” and Appalachia was shown as one of the best.
Last year a group called Invest Appalachia produced a report making the case that climate-induced migration is an opportunity for Central Appalachia but that “climate gentrification” is also a concern if newcomers price out locals.
A little more than two weeks ago, we saw the remnants of Hurricane Helene tear through part of Appalachia, doing particular damage to Asheville, North Carolina, a city often held out as a model destination for climate refugees. And then last week, Hurricane Milton roared across Florida, ripping off part of the roof of the domed stadium where baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays play.
Will Helene, which made landfall on the Florida peninsula, and Milton prompt more people to become “climate refugees”? Will Helene’s destructive path through the Appalachians make that region less attractive as a climate haven?
I can’t predict the future. I can, however, look at the past. Have we seen a trend of climate refugees already? And, if so, what does that mean for Virginia?
Conveniently, we have numbers, supplied by none other than the Internal Revenue Service, which tracks where people file income tax forms from. Or, as I like to say, the IRS knows where you live. This doesn’t capture everyone, but it seems a better measure to me than any estimate; this is an actual count.
The easiest thing to do is to look at Florida. Are we seeing more people move out of Florida?
No.
On the contrary, we’re seeing the gap between those moving into Florida and those moving out of Florida growing. It’s entirely possible that some of those moving out of Florida are, indeed, climate refugees. On a big-picture basis, though, we’re seeing Florida become more popular as a destination, not less. It’s also possible that the climate is deterring some people from moving to the Sunshine State, but we have no way to measure that. All we can say is that over the time period covered in these IRS reports (2004-2022), the number of people moving into Florida each year has grown while the number moving out has stayed relatively flat.
This also has political implications. Over the past quarter-century, we've seen Florida move from a swing state (so close that the outcome in 2000 rested on “hanging chads”) to a more reliably Republican state. Political analysts have suggested that some of that shift has come from new residents being conservative retirees from other states.
Meanwhile, Virginia has seen just the opposite trend — more people moving out of state than moving in. This is a metric that Gov. Glenn Youngkin has warned is bad for the state's economy. Note that it doesn't mean Virginia is losing population. On the contrary, Virginia is still gaining population, just a lot more slowly than it once did. Births still outnumber both deaths and the state's out-migration, but the size and shape of that out-migration (we're now exporting college graduates) should be a concern to Virginia's political leaders from both parties.
We need to look deeper, though. The Florida numbers above don't show any mass migration out of state — just the opposite — but that doesn't mean there might not be people moving out for climate reasons. If the Appalachia as a climate haven theory is true, then we might see an uptick in the number of newcomers from Florida. Are we? Let's find out!
Umm, no. The number of people moving from Florida to Virginia has remained pretty consistent while the number of people moving from Virginia to Florida has increased. Those Floridians moving here might include some climate refugees, but if we were seeing a climate refugee trend, we'd expect to see an uptick in overall migration from Florida and we're not.
Still, that's not conclusive, either. Just because we're not seeing a trend at the state level doesn't mean there's not a trend going on at a more localized level. Let's dig deeper.
First, a map you've seen here before:
This shows how most localities in Virginia are now seeing more people move in than move out. This is a significant change from preceding years when rural localities typically saw out-migration. Here's a more detailed map that gives a sense of scale.
In our search for climate refugees, let's look at some of the mountain counties that are seeing an increase in migration. Who's driving that?
I've looked up the migration data for each of the western counties that's showing net in-migration.
At this point, we do run into some data limitations. To protect privacy, the IRS won't disclose specifics if only a small number of people are involved. That means the IRS won't say which states the newcomers to a particular county are coming from, only the general part of the country. We'll have to get by with how many people are moving to, say, Lee County from “the South,” which could mean anything from the next county over to Key West. Either way, the number of people moving into these western counties from “the South” has been consistent for the past decade. There might well be climate refugees, but I'm still not seeing any evidence of a climate refugee trend big enough to change the overall data.
At least not in Virginia.
There is one place, though, where we might be seeing it: in North Carolina.
While Virginia has consistently been a net exporter to Florida, North Carolina has consistently been a net importer of Floridians.
In 2005, Virginia was North Carolina's top source of newcomers. Every year since, it's been Florida.
When we look more closely at Buncombe County, the county around Asheville, we see enough Florida newcomers that they surpass the IRS threshold for suppressing data for privacy reasons. In 2022, Buncombe saw 1,484 from Florida move in while 627 moved out for the Sunshine State. That's a net gain of 857. By contrast, Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem had so few Florida newcomers that the IRS didn't feel comfortable listing them separately. Instead, the overall growth from "the South" in general was just 87. Whatever trend is driving Florida-to-North Carolina migration stops there and does not extend past the state line in any appreciable way.
We have no way of knowing how many of those people moved for climate reasons or some other, but we do know that this is a rare example of people moving north, rather than south. In some places, Helene was strong enough that it rerouted streams. Will the damage it did to North Carolina reroute some domestic migration patterns as well?
Are you a climate refugee? If so, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know.
Did the weather help George Washington win the Battle of Yorktown?
If you like weather news, do we have a treat for you. The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Cardinal has embarked on a project to tell the little-known stories of the march to independence. Our next installment publishes Tuesday. Among the stories is one by Cardinal weather journalist Kevin Myatt, who explores the question above. Teaser: It involves the word "derecho."
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