Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Cabo Rojo, PR

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Lajas Substn, PR RQ, 6 miles southeast of Cabo Rojo at 90 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 92°F and low of 70°F; February is the coolest, at 87°F and 62°F. October is the wettest at 6.3 inches of precipitation on average and December the driest at 2.0 inches; the year adds up to 44.9 inches over 74 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 63% of the year's precipitation (28.2 of 44.9 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 50 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (24); a normal September there has highs of 91°F and 5.7 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 200 days a year. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 44.9 inches is more than at 3 of the 21 Puerto Rico stations used on this site (14%). Hormigueros, 4 miles northeast, has its own station (Mayaguez City, PR RQ): 51.3 inches a year, 6.4 more than here, and a July average high of 90°F against 92°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Mayaguez, PR, 9 miles north, averaged 87°F in September and 81°F in February over 2021–2025. Sea level at the Magueyes Island tide gauge, 11 miles from Cabo Rojo, has risen 0.81 ± 0.06 inches per decade from 1955 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.1 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 41 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 221 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Cabo Rojo: 96 floods, 64 flash floods, 31 thunderstorm wind reports, 26 heavy rain events and 4 lightning strikes. They killed 0 people and injured 7, and the NWS estimated $766.5 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 52 mph, on July 17, 2010. October has had the most flash floods, 15 of 64. Of the 86 Puerto Rico cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 34 have had fewer than Cabo Rojo.

Flood insurance policyholders in Cabo Rojo's ZIP code 00623 have filed 243 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $2.2 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Georges in 1998: 34 claims (14% of all) and $358,000, then Torrential Rain in 2003 with 23 and Hurricane Isabel in 1985 with 22. The year with the most claims was 2008, with 44. 58% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 72 Puerto Rico cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 52 have fewer than Cabo Rojo.