Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Kemah, TX

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Houston NWSO, TX, 6 miles southwest of Kemah at 19 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 92°F and low of 76°F; January is the coolest, at 64°F and 46°F. September is the wettest at 7.3 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 3.0 inches; the year adds up to 60.0 inches over 69 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 59% of the year's precipitation (35.1 of 60.0 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 57 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (19); a normal September there has highs of 88°F and 7.3 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 76 days a year, almost all from May to October. Lows fall below freezing on about 9 nights a year. That 60.0 inches is more than at 304 of the 312 Texas stations used on this site (97%). Friendswood, 10 miles west, has its own station (Houston Clover Field, TX): 53.2 inches a year, 6.8 less than here, and an August average high of 94°F against 92°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Eagle Point, Galveston Bay, TX, 8 miles southeast, averaged 89°F in August and 56°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from May to September. Sea level at the Eagle Point tide gauge, 8 miles from Kemah, has risen 4.80 ± 0.27 inches per decade from 1993 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 48.0 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 142 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 163 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Kemah: 101 thunderstorm wind reports, 45 flash floods, 14 lightning strikes, 2 heavy rain events and 1 flood. They killed 53 people and injured 17, and the NWS estimated $20.04 billion in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 83 mph, on April 10, 2024. May has had the most flash floods, 10 of 45. Of the 745 Texas cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 653 have had fewer than Kemah.

Flood insurance policyholders in Kemah's ZIP code 77565 have filed 3,106 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $84.4 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Ike in 2008: 970 claims (31% of all) and $55.6 million, then Flooding in 1998 with 423 and Hurricane Alicia in 1983 with 416. 91% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 433 Texas cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 403 have fewer than Kemah.