Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Key Biscayne, FL

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Cape Florida, FL, 2 miles south of Key Biscayne at 6 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 91°F and low of 79°F; January is the coolest, at 78°F and 63°F. September is the wettest at 7.5 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 2.0 inches; the year adds up to 55.3 inches over 74 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 68% of the year's precipitation (37.4 of 55.3 inches); the other six months are drier. October has brought the most of the 85 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (29); a normal October there has highs of 87°F and 6.3 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 55 days a year, almost all from May to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 55.3 inches is more than at 70 of the 125 Florida stations used on this site (56%). Coral Gables, 7 miles northwest, has its own station (Miami WSO City, FL): 51.1 inches a year, 4.2 less than here, and an August average high of 89°F against 91°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Virginia Key, FL, 2 miles north, averaged 89°F in August and 73°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from May to October. Sea level at the Virginia Key tide gauge, 2 miles from Key Biscayne, has risen 1.26 ± 0.04 inches per decade from 1931 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 12.6 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 76 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 186 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Key Biscayne: 76 thunderstorm wind reports, 58 floods, 28 flash floods, 18 lightning strikes and 6 heavy rain events. They killed 3 people and injured 11, and the NWS estimated $3.3 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 90 mph, on January 8, 1998. Of the 277 Florida cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 251 have had fewer than Key Biscayne.

Flood insurance policyholders in Key Biscayne's ZIP code 33149 have filed 1,832 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $63.1 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Andrew in 1992: 1,186 claims (65% of all) and $43.2 million, then Hurricane Irma in 2017 with 217 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with 95. 92% 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, 276 have fewer than Key Biscayne.