Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Delray Beach, FL

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Loxahatchee Nwr, FL, 7 miles northwest of Delray Beach at 21 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 90°F and low of 74°F; January is the coolest, at 75°F and 56°F. June is the wettest at 9.7 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 2.8 inches; the year adds up to 63.7 inches over 87 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 68% of the year's precipitation (43.4 of 63.7 inches); the other six months are drier. October has brought the most of the 86 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (29); a normal October there has highs of 86°F and 6.4 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 66 days a year, almost all from April to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 63.7 inches is more than at 108 of the 125 Florida stations used on this site (86%). Boca Raton, 7 miles south, has its own station (Pompano Beach Airpark, FL): 55.9 inches a year, 7.8 less than here, and an August average high of 91°F against 90°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Lake Worth Pier, Atlantic Ocean, FL, 12 miles northeast, averaged 86°F in August and 75°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from May to October. Sea level at the Lake Worth Pier tide gauge, 12 miles from Delray Beach, has risen 1.62 ± 0.10 inches per decade from 1970 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 16.2 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 99 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 135 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Delray Beach: 69 thunderstorm wind reports, 25 flash floods, 23 floods and 18 lightning strikes. They killed 5 people and injured 12, and the NWS estimated $9.8 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 81 mph, on March 15, 2003. October has had the most flash floods, 10 of 25. Of the 277 Florida cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 241 have had fewer than Delray Beach.

Flood insurance policyholders in Delray Beach's 6 ZIP codes have filed 1,211 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $5.0 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1979: 322 claims (27% of all) and $342,000, then Hurricane Irene in 1999 with 116 and Hurricane Wilma in 2005 with 86. 58% 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, 249 have fewer than Delray Beach.