Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Boxford, MA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Groveland, MA, 5 miles north of Boxford at 30 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 83°F and low of 62°F; January is the coolest, at 35°F and 17°F. March is the wettest at 5.0 inches of precipitation on average and August the driest at 3.4 inches; the year adds up to 49.1 inches over 82 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 49% of the year's precipitation (24.1 of 49.1 inches); the other six months are wetter. September has brought the most of the 45 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (18); a normal September there has highs of 73°F and 4.1 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 147 nights a year. Snowfall averages 67.1 inches a year, most of it in January. That 49.1 inches is more than at 39 of the 65 Massachusetts stations used on this site (60%). Topsfield, 4 miles southeast, has its own station (Beverly Municipal Airport, MA): 44.9 inches a year, 4.2 less than here, and a July average high of 82°F against 83°F.

Sea level at the Boston tide gauge, 23 miles from Boxford, has risen 1.17 ± 0.03 inches per decade from 1921 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 11.7 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 68 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 222 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Boxford: 150 thunderstorm wind reports, 38 floods, 23 flash floods and 11 lightning strikes. They killed 1 person and injured 18, and the NWS estimated $5.9 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 98 mph, on September 6, 2014. September has had the most flash floods, 8 of 23. Of the 339 Massachusetts cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 205 have had fewer than Boxford.

Flood insurance policyholders in Boxford's ZIP code 01921 have filed 13 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $48,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. 69% 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, 27 have fewer than Boxford.