Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Imperial Beach, CA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Chula Vista, CA, 5 miles northeast of Imperial Beach at 56 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 77°F and low of 66°F; December is the coolest, at 67°F and 46°F. February is the wettest at 2.3 inches of precipitation on average and August the driest at 0.0 inches; the year adds up to 9.4 inches over 20 days with at least a tenth of an inch. Highs reach 90°F on about 5 days a year, almost all from September to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 9.4 inches is more than at 36 of the 226 California stations used on this site (16%). San Ysidro, 4 miles southeast, has its own station (San Diego Brown Field, CA): 10.1 inches a year, 0.7 more than here, and an August average high of 81°F against 77°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station San Diego, CA, 10 miles north, averaged 72°F in August and 59°F in January over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the San Diego tide gauge, 10 miles from Imperial Beach, has risen 0.88 ± 0.03 inches per decade from 1906 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.8 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 51 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 63 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Imperial Beach: 32 floods, 18 flash floods, 9 thunderstorm wind reports and 4 heavy rain events. They killed 2 people and injured 12, and the NWS estimated $32.5 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 70 mph, on December 20, 2007. January has had the most flash floods, 10 of 18. Of the 550 California cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 432 have had fewer than Imperial Beach.

Flood insurance policyholders in Imperial Beach's ZIP code 91932 have filed 37 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1983, and were paid $157,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1983: 21 claims (57% of all) and $53,000. 68% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 415 California cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 189 have fewer than Imperial Beach.