NHC HURDAT2 · SPC Tornado Database
Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Mountain View, 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 Mountain View, California since records began in 1851. Since 1950, 10 tornadoes have touched down within 25 miles, 0 of them rated EF3 or stronger.
- Hurricanes
- 0
- Tropical storms
- 0
- Tornadoes
- 10
- 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 Mountain View
The highest rating among the 10 tornadoes within 25 miles is F2, reached 2 times; the most recent, on May 5, 1998, came within 3 miles. Of the 10, 4 had paths within 5 miles of the city centre, and one has come since 2000. December has had the most tornadoes, 3. The most recent tornado was on December 14, 2024. Of the 705 California cities on this site, 59% have more tornadoes within 25 miles than Mountain View. Hail has been reported within 10 miles 9 times since 2017, with stones up to 0.35 inches. Mountain View has more hail reports within 10 miles than 85% of the 705 California cities.
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Tornadoes within 25 miles of Mountain View
By decade
- 2020s1
- 1990s6
- 1980s1
- 1950s2
| Date | Rating | Distance | Path | Killed / injured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 5, 1998 | F2 | 3 mi | 0.6 mi | 0 / 1 |
| Jan 11, 1951 | F2 | in town | 5.7 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Dec 14, 2024 | EF1 | 24 mi | 0.31 mi | 0 / 5 |
| May 5, 1998 | F1 | 2 mi | 0.3 mi | 0 / 1 |
| Jan 14, 1980 | F1 | 13 mi | 0.3 mi | 0 / 1 |
| Apr 1, 1958 | F1 | 22 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Feb 7, 1998 | F0 | 20 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Feb 6, 1998 | F0 | 3 mi | 0.1 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Dec 8, 1997 | F0 | 12 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Dec 17, 1992 | F0 | 24 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
The strongest 10 of 10, by rating and then by deaths. Ratings before February 2007 are on the original Fujita scale.
Hail in Mountain View
The Storm Prediction Center has 9 hail reports within 10 miles of Mountain View since 2017, made on 5 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.
Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather reports, data through 2025.
Weather by month in Mountain View
The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Moffett Federal Airfield, CA, 2 miles northeast of Mountain View at 39 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 77°F and low of 59°F; December is the coolest, at 59°F and 42°F. February is the wettest at 2.9 inches of precipitation on average and July and August the driest at 0.0 inches; the year adds up to 13.5 inches over 32 days with at least a tenth of an inch. Highs reach 90°F on about 9 days a year, almost all from June to October. Lows fall below freezing on about 2 nights a year. That 13.5 inches is more than at 85 of the 226 California stations used on this site (38%). Palo Alto, 4 miles northwest, has its own station (Palo Alto, CA): 15.2 inches a year, 1.7 more than here, and an August average high of 79°F against 77°F.
Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Redwood City, CA, 11 miles northwest, 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, 11 miles from Mountain View, 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 | 59 | 42 | 2.5 | 5 | 54 |
| Feb | 62 | 45 | 2.9 | 6 | 55 |
| Mar | 65 | 47 | 2.0 | 6 | 58 |
| Apr | 68 | 49 | 1.0 | 3 | 62 |
| May | 72 | 53 | 0.4 | 1 | 67 |
| Jun | 76 | 56 | 0.1 | 0 | 70 |
| Jul | 77 | 59 | 0.0 | 0 | 73 |
| Aug | 77 | 59 | 0.0 | 0 | 74 |
| Sep | 78 | 57 | 0.1 | 0 | 73 |
| Oct | 74 | 53 | 0.6 | 2 | 69 |
| Nov | 66 | 46 | 1.4 | 3 | 60 |
| Dec | 59 | 42 | 2.5 | 6 | 55 |
| Year | 69 | 51 | 13.5 | 32 | 64 |
Averages for 1991–2020 at Moffett Federal Airfield, CA (39 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 Mountain View
Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 80 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Mountain View: 68 floods, 6 thunderstorm wind reports, 3 heavy rain events, 2 flash floods and 1 lightning strike. They killed 1 person and injured 1, and the NWS estimated $3.3 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 81 mph, on January 18, 2010.
January 20, 2010: flood 9 miles from the centre of Mountain View — 1 killed.
February 28, 2014: flood 10 miles from the centre of Mountain View — 1 injured.
December 23, 2012: flood 5 miles from the centre of Mountain View — $2.7 million damage.
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 Mountain View's 2 ZIP codes have filed 10 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1980, and were paid $14,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. 80% 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, 0 have fewer than Mountain View.
Santa Clara County, which includes Mountain View, 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.
Cities near Mountain View
- Los Altos, CA2 mi
- Sunnyvale, CA3 mi
- Palo Alto, CA4 mi
- Stanford, CA5 mi
- Cupertino, CA5 mi
- Menlo Park, CA7 mi
- Santa Clara, CA7 mi
- Portola Valley, CA7 mi
- Atherton, CA8 mi
- Saratoga, CA9 mi
- Redwood City, CA10 mi
- Newark, CA10 mi
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