Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Cape Coral, FL

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Fort Myers Page Field Airport, FL, 8 miles southeast of Cape Coral at 15 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 92°F and low of 75°F; January is the coolest, at 75°F and 54°F. August is the wettest at 10.4 inches of precipitation on average and February and November the driest at 1.8 inches; the year adds up to 57.5 inches over 77 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 75% of the year's precipitation (43.4 of 57.5 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 78 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (24); a normal September there has highs of 90°F and 9.0 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 120 days a year, almost all from April to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 57.5 inches is more than at 88 of the 125 Florida stations used on this site (70%). Estero, 18 miles southeast, has its own station (Fort Myers SW Fl Regional Airport, FL): 53.5 inches a year, 4.0 less than here, and an August average high of 91°F against 92°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Fort Myers, FL, 7 miles east, averaged 88°F in July and August and 67°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from May to October. Sea level at the Fort Myers tide gauge, 7 miles from Cape Coral, has risen 1.43 ± 0.08 inches per decade from 1965 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 14.3 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 86 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 85 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Cape Coral: 57 thunderstorm wind reports, 16 floods, 7 lightning strikes, 4 heavy rain events and 1 flash flood. They killed 2 people and injured 2, and the NWS estimated $1.6 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 68 mph, on January 9, 2016.

Flood insurance policyholders in Cape Coral's 6 ZIP codes have filed 7,993 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $500.4 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Ian in 2022: 6,166 claims (77% of all) and $472.3 million, then Hurricane Charley in 2004 with 409 and Hurricane Milton in 2024 with 241. 94% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 340 Florida cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 330 have fewer than Cape Coral.