Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Los Angeles, CA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Los Angeles Dwtn Usc Campus, CA, 4 miles east of Los Angeles at 230 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 84°F and low of 65°F; December is the coolest, at 67°F and 48°F. February is the wettest at 3.6 inches of precipitation on average and July and August the driest at 0.0 inches; the year adds up to 14.2 inches over 21 days with at least a tenth of an inch. Highs reach 90°F on about 25 days a year, almost all from April to November. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 14.2 inches is more than at 96 of the 226 California stations used on this site (42%). Culver City, 6 miles west, has its own station (Culver City, CA): 14.2 inches a year, the same as here, and an August average high of 79°F against 84°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Santa Monica, CA, 12 miles west, averaged 69°F in August and 58°F in January and March over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the Santa Monica tide gauge, 12 miles from Los Angeles, has risen 0.60 ± 0.06 inches per decade from 1933 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 6.0 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 28 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 35 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Los Angeles: 25 flash floods, 8 thunderstorm wind reports and 2 floods. They killed 0 people and injured 2, and the NWS estimated $310,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 60 mph, on September 21, 2007. February has had the most flash floods, 10 of 25. Of the 550 California cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 484 have had fewer than Los Angeles.

Flood insurance policyholders in Los Angeles's 51 ZIP codes have filed 2,065 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $13.3 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1980: 625 claims (30% of all) and $2.0 million, then Pineapple Express - Southern in 1998 with 248 and California Atmospheric River in 2023 with 57. 48% 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, 412 have fewer than Los Angeles.