Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Amesbury, MA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Haverhill, MA, 9 miles southwest of Amesbury at 20 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 82°F and low of 61°F; January is the coolest, at 35°F and 16°F. October is the wettest at 5.3 inches of precipitation on average and January the driest at 3.5 inches; the year adds up to 49.6 inches over 84 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 50% of the year's precipitation (24.8 of 49.6 inches). September has brought the most of the 43 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (17); a normal September there has highs of 74°F and 4.0 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 13 days a year, almost all from June to August. Lows fall below freezing on about 144 nights a year. Snowfall averages 57.8 inches a year, most of it in January. That 49.6 inches is more than at 45 of the 65 Massachusetts stations used on this site (69%). Salisbury, 4 miles east, has its own station (Groveland, MA): 49.1 inches a year, 0.5 less than here, and a July average high of 83°F against 82°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Seavey Island, ME, 18 miles northeast, averaged 64°F in August and 37°F in February over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the Seavey Island tide gauge, 18 miles from Amesbury, has risen 0.87 ± 0.04 inches per decade from 1926 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.7 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 48 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 142 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Amesbury: 118 thunderstorm wind reports, 12 floods, 9 lightning strikes and 3 flash floods. They killed 1 person and injured 27, and the NWS estimated $3.9 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 90 mph, on July 18, 2016.

Flood insurance policyholders in Amesbury's ZIP code 01913 have filed 66 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $1.3 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The year with the most claims was 2006, with 22. 38% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 229 Massachusetts cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 148 have fewer than Amesbury.