Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Marathon, FL

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Marathon Airport, FL, 2 miles west of Marathon at 8 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 92°F and low of 80°F; January is the coolest, at 76°F and 64°F. September is the wettest at 6.4 inches of precipitation on average and March the driest at 1.3 inches; the year adds up to 39.7 inches over 59 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 69% of the year's precipitation (27.4 of 39.7 inches); the other six months are drier. October has brought the most of the 77 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (28); a normal October there has highs of 86°F and 5.9 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 105 days a year, almost all from April to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 39.7 inches is more than at 1 of the 125 Florida stations used on this site (1%). Islamorada, 28 miles northeast, has its own station (Islamorada, FL): 38.8 inches a year, 0.9 less than here, and an August average high of 89°F against 92°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Vaca Key, Florida Bay, FL, 5 miles west, averaged 89°F in July and 72°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from April to October. Sea level at the Vaca Key tide gauge, 5 miles from Marathon, has risen 1.65 ± 0.08 inches per decade from 1971 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 16.5 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 103 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 22 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Marathon: 17 thunderstorm wind reports, 3 floods, 1 heavy rain event and 1 lightning strike. They killed 1 person and injured 0, and the NWS estimated $118,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 99 mph, on May 4, 1998.

Flood insurance policyholders in Marathon's ZIP code 33050 have filed 5,286 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $153.9 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Irma in 2017: 1,792 claims (34% of all) and $81.7 million, then Hurricane Georges (Keys) in 1998 with 1,521 and Hurricane Wilma in 2005 with 1,445. 96% 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, 324 have fewer than Marathon.