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NHC HURDAT2 · SPC Tornado Database

Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Higganum, CT

Every tropical system within 75 miles since 1851 and every tornado within 25 miles since 1950.

Data: NOAA NHC HURDAT2 and NOAA SPC tornado and hail reports, through 2025 · Updated

54 tropical systems have passed within 75 miles of Higganum, Connecticut since 1851, 12 of them at hurricane strength; the most recent was Ida in 2021. Since 1950, 40 tornadoes have touched down within 25 miles, 4 of them rated EF3 or stronger.

Hurricanes
12

within 75 mi, since 1851

Tropical storms
42

below hurricane strength

Tornadoes
40

within 25 mi, since 1950

EF3 or stronger
4

1 deaths in all

What the records show for Higganum

The strongest storm to pass near Higganum was an unnamed storm in 1869, a Category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds when its centre passed 44 miles away. The closest pass by a hurricane was an unnamed storm in 1894, whose centre came within 12 miles. The record near Higganum begins with an unnamed storm in 1851; the most recent system was Ida in 2021, a tropical storm 53 miles away. The busiest decade was the 1860s, with 5 systems, one of them at hurricane strength. Of the 54 systems, 7 have come since 2000. Higganum has more hurricanes within 75 miles than 77% of the 186 Connecticut cities on this site. The strongest of the 40 tornadoes within 25 miles was an F4 on July 10, 1989; its path came within 18 miles. The deadliest, an F3 on May 24, 1962, killed 1 person. Of the 40, one had a path within 5 miles of the city centre, and 11 have come since 2000. July has had the most tornadoes, 13. The most recent tornado was on November 13, 2021. Of the 186 Connecticut cities, 60% have more tornadoes within 25 miles than Higganum. Hail has been reported within 10 miles 31 times since 1960, with stones up to 2.75 inches (baseball size). Of the 186 Connecticut cities, 56% have more hail reports within 10 miles than Higganum.

Compare Higganum's storm record with another city →

Tropical storms and hurricanes near Higganum

Tropical systems that passed within 75 miles of Higganum, Connecticut, newest first
YearStormClosestStrength when closestPeak
2021IdaSep 253 miTropical storm (46 mph)Category 4
2021HenriAug 2213 miTropical storm (40 mph)Category 1
2021ElsaJul 937 miTropical storm (58 mph)Category 1
2013AndreaJun 837 miTropical storm (46 mph)Tropical storm
2011IreneAug 2849 miTropical storm (60 mph)Category 3
2008HannaSep 79 miTropical storm (52 mph)Category 1
2007BarryJun 448 miTropical storm (40 mph)Tropical storm
1999FloydSep 175 miTropical storm (58 mph)Category 4
1996BerthaJul 137 miTropical storm (69 mph)Category 3
1991BobAug 1954 miCategory 2 (104 mph)Category 3
1985GloriaSep 2719 miCategory 1 (86 mph)Category 4
1985HenriSep 2446 miTropical storm (40 mph)Tropical storm
1976BelleAug 1019 miTropical storm (59 mph)Category 3
1972AgnesJun 2266 miTropical storm (55 mph)Category 1
1971DoriaAug 2842 miTropical storm (56 mph)Tropical storm
1968Unnamed 1968 stormSep 1122 miTropical storm (63 mph)Tropical storm
1961Unnamed 1961 stormSep 152 miTropical storm (63 mph)Tropical storm
1960DonnaSep 1214 miCategory 1 (91 mph)Category 4
1960BrendaJul 3014 miTropical storm (53 mph)Tropical storm
1959CindyJul 1171 miTropical storm (58 mph)Category 1
1955DianeAug 1948 miTropical storm (46 mph)Category 2
1954CarolAug 3132 miCategory 3 (114 mph)Category 3
1952AbleSep 149 miTropical storm (53 mph)Category 2
1944Unnamed 1944 stormSep 1541 miCategory 2 (101 mph)Category 5
1938Unnamed 1938 stormSep 2117 miCategory 3 (112 mph)Category 5
1934Unnamed 1934 stormSep 96 miTropical storm (54 mph)Category 2
1934Unnamed 1934 stormJun 2040 miTropical storm (46 mph)Category 2
1924Unnamed 1924 stormSep 3047 miTropical storm (66 mph)Category 1
1916Unnamed 1916 stormJul 2166 miTropical storm (69 mph)Category 2
1916Unnamed 1916 stormMay 1719 miTropical storm (58 mph)Tropical storm
1915Unnamed 1915 stormAug 519 miTropical storm (48 mph)Category 1
1908Unnamed 1908 stormMay 3032 miTropical storm (40 mph)Category 1
1907Unnamed 1907 stormJun 3064 miTropical storm (43 mph)Tropical storm
1904Unnamed 1904 stormSep 1547 miCategory 1 (82 mph)Category 1
1902Unnamed 1902 stormJun 1626 miTropical storm (41 mph)Tropical storm
1897Unnamed 1897 stormSep 2423 miTropical storm (52 mph)Tropical storm
1894Unnamed 1894 stormOct 1012 miCategory 1 (75 mph)Category 3
1893Unnamed 1893 stormAug 2967 miTropical storm (63 mph)Category 3
1893Unnamed 1893 stormAug 2451 miCategory 1 (79 mph)Category 3
1888Unnamed 1888 stormOct 1272 miTropical storm (46 mph)Category 2
1888Unnamed 1888 stormSep 1218 miTropical storm (40 mph)Tropical storm
1888Unnamed 1888 stormAug 2214 miTropical storm (46 mph)Category 3
1882Unnamed 1882 stormSep 2433 miTropical storm (46 mph)Tropical storm
1879Unnamed 1879 stormAug 1968 miCategory 1 (84 mph)Category 3
1877Unnamed 1877 stormOct 545 miTropical storm (68 mph)Category 3
1874Unnamed 1874 stormSep 3015 miTropical storm (69 mph)Category 1
1872Unnamed 1872 stormOct 2710 miTropical storm (46 mph)Category 1
1869Unnamed 1869 stormSep 844 miCategory 3 (115 mph)Category 3
1866Unnamed 1866 stormOct 3069 miTropical storm (56 mph)Tropical storm
1863Unnamed 1863 stormSep 1958 miTropical storm (47 mph)Tropical storm
1861Unnamed 1861 stormNov 334 miTropical storm (69 mph)Category 1
1861Unnamed 1861 stormSep 2820 miTropical storm (59 mph)Category 1
1858Unnamed 1858 stormSep 1630 miCategory 1 (82 mph)Category 2
1851Unnamed 1851 stormOct 1947 miTropical storm (54 mph)Tropical storm

Strength is the sustained wind on the track at the closest point, which is not the wind felt in Higganum: a hurricane's worst winds sit within a few dozen miles of its centre, and inland cities are usually past that.

Tornadoes within 25 miles of Higganum

By decade

  • 2020s4
  • 2010s5
  • 2000s2
  • 1990s6
  • 1980s4(1 EF3+)
  • 1970s7(1 EF3+)
  • 1960s3(1 EF3+)
  • 1950s9(1 EF3+)
Strongest tornadoes near Higganum, Connecticut
DateRatingDistancePathKilled / injured
Jul 10, 1989F418 mi3 mi0 / 40
May 24, 1962F318 mi11.6 mi1 / 50
Jul 29, 1971F325 mi0.1 mi0 / 2
Aug 21, 1951F39 mi0.1 mi0 / 8
Jul 10, 1989F224 mi5 mi0 / 70
Jul 5, 1984F222 mi3 mi0 / 0
Sep 18, 1973F219 mi0.1 mi0 / 0
Sep 6, 1973F223 mi3.3 mi0 / 0
Aug 31, 1973F220 mi0.1 mi0 / 0
Oct 24, 1955F224 mi0.5 mi0 / 0
Aug 21, 1951F222 mi43.9 mi0 / 9
Jul 12, 1950F27 mi10 mi0 / 0

The strongest 12 of 40, by rating and then by deaths. Ratings before February 2007 are on the original Fujita scale.

Hail in Higganum

The Storm Prediction Center has 31 hail reports within 10 miles of Higganum since 1960, made on 24 separate days. Of these, 15 were 1 inch across or larger, and 3 reached 2 inches. The largest, 2.75 inches (baseball size), fell on June 20, 1995. The most recent report is from August 26, 2024. July has the most reports, 10.

Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather reports, data through 2025.

Weather by month in Higganum

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Meriden Markham Municipal Airport, CT, 13 miles west of Higganum at 103 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 84°F and low of 63°F; January is the coolest, at 37°F and 19°F. October is the wettest at 4.5 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 2.9 inches; the year adds up to 45.0 inches over 74 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 52% of the year's precipitation (23.2 of 45.0 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 54 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (22); a normal September there has highs of 75°F and 4.3 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 15 days a year, almost all from June to September. Lows fall below freezing on about 129 nights a year. That 45.0 inches is more than at 6 of the 27 Connecticut stations used on this site (22%). Moodus, 7 miles east, has its own station (Hartford Brainard Field, CT): 42.9 inches a year, 2.1 less than here, and a July average high of 85°F against 84°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station New Haven, CT, 21 miles southwest, averaged 75°F in August and 37°F in February over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the New London tide gauge, 26 miles from Higganum, has risen 1.16 ± 0.04 inches per decade from 1938 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 11.6 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 66 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Monthly climate normals 1991–2020 at Meriden Markham Municipal Airport, CT
MonthHigh °FLow °FPrecip. inDays ≥ 0.1"Water °F
Jan37193.1539
Feb39202.9537
Mar48284.1641
Apr60384.1748
May70483.5757
Jun79574.1765
Jul84633.4674
Aug82613.5675
Sep75544.3572
Oct64424.5663
Nov52323.4653
Dec42254.1743
Year614045.07456

Averages for 1991–2020 at Meriden Markham Municipal Airport, CT (103 ft), from NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals; water temperature: average of hourly readings 2021–2025 at the NOAA tide station New Haven, CT, from NOAA Tides & Currents. Normals describe the station; the farther a place is from it, and the bigger the difference in height, the more its weather can differ.

Connecticut weather by month, station by station →

Floods, thunderstorm wind and lightning near Higganum

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 103 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Higganum: 83 thunderstorm wind reports, 13 flash floods, 4 lightning strikes and 3 floods. They killed 0 people and injured 1, and the NWS estimated $600,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 110 mph, on July 21, 2010. September has had the most flash floods, 5 of 13. Of the 186 Connecticut cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 38 have had fewer than Higganum.

  • August 1, 2011: lightning strike 2 miles from the centre of Higganum — 1 injured, $50,000 damage.

    NWS: “Lightning struck a barn along Wiese Albert Road in the town of Haddam, causing a fire. As a result of the fire, one horse died, and the owner suffered minor injuries while trying to rescue the horse.”

  • July 8, 2011: flash flood 10 miles from the centre of Higganum — $250,000 damage.

Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, events whose starting point is on record, 1996 to June 30, 2026. Damage is the NWS estimate in the dollars of the year, not insured losses, and NWS notes that some reports are unverified.

Flood insurance claims, disaster declarations and FEMA risk ratings

Flood insurance policyholders in Higganum's ZIP code 06441 have filed 17 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1982, and were paid $90,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. 65% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 128 Connecticut cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 23 have fewer than Higganum.

Middlesex County, which includes Higganum, has been named in 28 federal disaster or emergency declarations since 1978, 16 of them major disasters (by incident: 11 hurricanes, 7 severe storms, 5 snowstorms, 3 floods). The latest major disaster declaration was Remnants of Hurricane Ida, on October 30, 2021.

Claims: FEMA, OpenFEMA Dataset FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims – v3, summed over ZIP codes; payments in the dollars of each year, not adjusted for inflation. Declarations: Disaster Declarations Summaries – v2, by county. Retrieved October 25, 2026. This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

What counts as a pass, the distances and the sources: how this storm history is built.

Cities near Higganum