Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Catano, PR

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is San Juan L M Marin Airport, PR RQ, 8 miles east of Catano at 9 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 89°F and low of 78°F; January is the coolest, at 83°F and 72°F. November is the wettest at 7.4 inches of precipitation on average and March the driest at 2.2 inches; the year adds up to 60.0 inches over 112 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 60% of the year's precipitation (36.1 of 60.0 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 64 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (27); a normal September there has highs of 89°F and 6.5 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 72 days a year, almost all from March to November. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 60.0 inches is more than at 7 of the 21 Puerto Rico stations used on this site (33%). Toa Baja, 4 miles west, has its own station (Dorado 2 WNW, PR RQ): 66.0 inches a year, 6.0 more than here, and an August average high of 88°F against 89°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station San Juan, La Puntilla, San Juan Bay, PR, 2 miles northeast, averaged 86°F in September and 80°F in February over 2021–2025. Sea level at the San Juan tide gauge, 2 miles from Catano, has risen 0.85 ± 0.06 inches per decade from 1962 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.5 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 45 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 882 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Catano: 392 flash floods, 367 floods, 75 heavy rain events, 43 thunderstorm wind reports and 5 lightning strikes. They killed 11 people and injured 3, and the NWS estimated $4.00 billion in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 58 mph, on June 22, 2015. May has had the most flash floods, 75 of 392. Of the 86 Puerto Rico cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 80 have had fewer than Catano.

Flood insurance policyholders in Catano's ZIP code 00962 have filed 228 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1989, and were paid $1.5 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Georges in 1998: 113 claims (50% of all) and $204,000, then Hurricane Hortense in 1996 with 33 and Hurricane Maria in 2017 with 12. 79% 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, 50 have fewer than Catano.