Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Largo, FL

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is St Petersburg International Airport, FL, 6 miles east of Largo at 11 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 91°F and low of 76°F; January is the coolest, at 71°F and 53°F. July is the wettest at 9.7 inches of precipitation on average and November the driest at 1.6 inches; the year adds up to 53.5 inches over 72 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 71% of the year's precipitation (37.9 of 53.5 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 78 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (27); a normal September there has highs of 89°F and 6.4 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 94 days a year, almost all from May to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 53.5 inches is more than at 53 of the 125 Florida stations used on this site (42%). Dunedin, 9 miles north, has its own station (Tarpon Spgs Sewage Plt, FL): 54.4 inches a year, 0.9 more than here, and the same August average high, 91°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Clearwater Beach, FL, 7 miles northwest, averaged 90°F in July and 64°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from May to September. Sea level at the Clearwater Beach tide gauge, 7 miles from Largo, has risen 1.72 ± 0.10 inches per decade from 1973 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 17.2 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 109 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 193 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Largo: 108 thunderstorm wind reports, 63 lightning strikes, 15 heavy rain events, 4 flash floods and 3 floods. They killed 10 people and injured 31, and the NWS estimated $4.2 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 90 mph, on January 25, 2011.

Flood insurance policyholders in Largo's 6 ZIP codes have filed 1,360 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $104.6 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Helene in 2024: 447 claims (33% of all) and $65.0 million, then Hurricane Milton in 2024 with 305 and Flooding in 1988 with 164. 79% 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, 258 have fewer than Largo.