Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Dover, DE

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Dover, DE, 2 miles southeast of Dover at 30 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 87°F and low of 69°F; January is the coolest, at 44°F and 28°F. August is the wettest at 4.9 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 3.1 inches; the year adds up to 47.7 inches over 74 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 53% of the year's precipitation (25.4 of 47.7 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 53 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (19); a normal September there has highs of 79°F and 4.3 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 25 days a year, almost all from May to September. Lows fall below freezing on about 79 nights a year. Snowfall averages 13.2 inches a year, most of it in February. That 47.7 inches is more than at 8 of the 11 Delaware stations used on this site (73%). Harrington, 18 miles south, has its own station (Greenwood 2NE, DE): 46.3 inches a year, 1.4 less than here, and the same July average high, 87°F.

Sea level at the Reedy Point tide gauge, 27 miles from Dover, has risen 1.55 ± 0.09 inches per decade from 1956 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 15.5 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 93 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 164 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Dover: 123 thunderstorm wind reports, 18 heavy rain events, 14 floods, 7 flash floods and 2 lightning strikes. They killed 0 people and injured 1, and the NWS estimated $1.5 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 92 mph, on March 16, 2026. August has had the most flash floods, 3 of 7. Of the 37 Delaware cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 2 have had fewer than Dover.

Flood insurance policyholders in Dover's 2 ZIP codes have filed 101 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $859,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The year with the most claims was 2008, with 23. 20% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 24 Delaware cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 11 have fewer than Dover.