NHC HURDAT2 · SPC Tornado Database
Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Milpitas, CA
Every tropical system within 75 miles since 1851 and every tornado within 25 miles since 1950.
Data: NOAA NHC HURDAT2 and NOAA SPC tornado and hail reports, through 2025 · Updated
No tropical storm or hurricane has passed within 75 miles of Milpitas, California since records began in 1851. Since 1950, 9 tornadoes have touched down within 25 miles, 0 of them rated EF3 or stronger.
- Hurricanes
- 0
- Tropical storms
- 0
- Tornadoes
- 9
- EF3 or stronger
- 0
within 75 mi, since 1851
below hurricane strength
within 25 mi, since 1950
no recorded deaths
What the records show for Milpitas
The highest rating among the 9 tornadoes within 25 miles is F2, reached 2 times; the most recent, on May 5, 1998, came within 9 miles. Of the 9, one had a path within 5 miles of the city centre, and none has come since 2000. The most recent tornado was on May 5, 1998. Of the 705 California cities on this site, 63% have more tornadoes within 25 miles than Milpitas. Hail has been reported within 10 miles 12 times since 2017, with stones up to 0.35 inches. Milpitas has more hail reports within 10 miles than 91% of the 705 California cities.
Compare Milpitas's storm record with another city →
Tornadoes within 25 miles of Milpitas
By decade
- 1990s6
- 1980s2
- 1950s1
| Date | Rating | Distance | Path | Killed / injured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 5, 1998 | F2 | 9 mi | 0.6 mi | 0 / 1 |
| Jan 11, 1951 | F2 | 8 mi | 5.7 mi | 0 / 0 |
| May 5, 1998 | F1 | 13 mi | 0.3 mi | 0 / 1 |
| Jan 14, 1980 | F1 | 3 mi | 0.3 mi | 0 / 1 |
| Feb 6, 1998 | F0 | 9 mi | 0.1 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Dec 8, 1997 | F0 | 7 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Apr 25, 1994 | F0 | 18 mi | 0.7 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Dec 17, 1992 | F0 | 25 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Mar 29, 1982 | F0 | 18 mi | 0.1 mi | 0 / 0 |
The strongest 9 of 9, by rating and then by deaths. Ratings before February 2007 are on the original Fujita scale.
Hail in Milpitas
The Storm Prediction Center has 12 hail reports within 10 miles of Milpitas since 2017, made on 8 separate days. None of them reached 1 inch. The largest, 0.35 inches, fell on March 25, 2020. The most recent report is from March 10, 2021. March has the most reports, 9.
Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather reports, data through 2025.
Weather by month in Milpitas
The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is San Jose, CA, 6 miles south of Milpitas at 51 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 81°F and low of 59°F; December is the coolest, at 60°F and 42°F. January is the wettest at 2.8 inches of precipitation on average and July the driest at 0.0 inches; the year adds up to 13.6 inches over 30 days with at least a tenth of an inch. Highs reach 90°F on about 16 days a year, almost all from May to October. Lows fall below freezing on about 3 nights a year. That 13.6 inches is more than at 87 of the 226 California stations used on this site (38%). Sunnyvale, 8 miles southwest, has its own station (Moffett Federal Airfield, CA): 13.5 inches a year, the same as here, and an August average high of 77°F against 81°F.
Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Redwood City, CA, 18 miles west, averaged 74°F in August and 54°F in January over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the Redwood City tide gauge, 18 miles from Milpitas, has risen 1.08 ± 0.25 inches per decade from 1974 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 10.8 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 62 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.
| Month | High °F | Low °F | Precip. in | Days ≥ 0.1" | Water °F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 60 | 42 | 2.8 | 5 | 54 |
| Feb | 62 | 44 | 2.7 | 6 | 55 |
| Mar | 66 | 46 | 2.1 | 5 | 58 |
| Apr | 69 | 48 | 1.1 | 3 | 62 |
| May | 74 | 52 | 0.4 | 1 | 67 |
| Jun | 79 | 56 | 0.2 | 0 | 70 |
| Jul | 81 | 58 | 0.0 | 0 | 73 |
| Aug | 81 | 59 | 0.1 | 0 | 74 |
| Sep | 81 | 57 | 0.1 | 0 | 73 |
| Oct | 76 | 53 | 0.5 | 1 | 69 |
| Nov | 66 | 46 | 1.3 | 3 | 60 |
| Dec | 60 | 42 | 2.3 | 5 | 55 |
| Year | 71 | 50 | 13.6 | 30 | 64 |
Averages for 1991–2020 at San Jose, CA (51 ft), from NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals; water temperature: average of hourly readings 2021–2025 at the NOAA tide station Redwood City, CA, from NOAA Tides & Currents. Normals describe the station; the farther a place is from it, and the bigger the difference in height, the more its weather can differ.
Floods, thunderstorm wind and lightning near Milpitas
Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 88 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Milpitas: 77 floods, 4 heavy rain events, 4 lightning strikes, 2 thunderstorm wind reports and 1 flash flood. They killed 2 people and injured 2, and the NWS estimated $35,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 81 mph, on January 18, 2010.
January 20, 2010: flood 10 miles from the centre of Milpitas — 1 killed.
December 31, 2022: flood 5 miles from the centre of Milpitas — 1 killed.
February 28, 2014: flood 4 miles from the centre of Milpitas — 1 injured.
NWS: “Firefighters rescued a homeless man from the waters of Coyote Creek near the San Jose Municipal Golf Course. He was stuck in waist deep water, clinging to trees and debris.”
Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, events whose starting point is on record, 1996 to June 30, 2026. Damage is the NWS estimate in the dollars of the year, not insured losses, and NWS notes that some reports are unverified.
Flood insurance claims, disaster declarations and FEMA risk ratings
Flood insurance policyholders in Milpitas's ZIP code 95035 have filed 67 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $60,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1983: 22 claims (33% of all) and $26,000. 45% 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, 274 have fewer than Milpitas.
| Event | Claims | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Flooding1983 | 22 | $26,000 |
Santa Clara County, which includes Milpitas, has been named in 25 federal disaster or emergency declarations since 1977, 16 of them major disasters (by incident: 6 fires, 6 floods, 6 severe storms, 2 biological emergencies). The latest major disaster declaration was Severe Winter Storms, Straight-Line Winds, Flooding, Landslides, and Mudslides, on April 3, 2023. FEMA's National Risk Index gives Santa Clara County a Very High rating for natural hazard risk overall; by hazard: Very High for inland flooding; Relatively High for coastal flooding and heat waves; Relatively Low for tornadoes, hail and lightning; Very Low for strong wind. It models the county's expected loss from all 18 hazards it covers at $1.97 billion a year, the 4th highest of 58 California counties; of the hazards above, the largest share, $720.2 million (37%), is from inland flooding.
Claims: FEMA, OpenFEMA Dataset FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims – v3, summed over ZIP codes; payments in the dollars of each year, not adjusted for inflation. Declarations: Disaster Declarations Summaries – v2, by county. Retrieved October 25, 2026. This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).
Risk ratings: FEMA, National Risk Index county table, December 2025 (v1.20), retrieved October 26, 2026; ratings compare counties nationwide, are meant for planning and are no substitute for a local risk assessment. This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Risk Index dataset API or downloadable datasets but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).
What counts as a pass, the distances and the sources: how this storm history is built.