Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Port Arthur, TX

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Port Arthur SE Tx Airport, TX, 6 miles northwest of Port Arthur at 16 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 93°F and low of 74°F; January is the coolest, at 64°F and 44°F. July and August are the wettest at 6.9 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 3.1 inches; the year adds up to 62.2 inches over 71 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 59% of the year's precipitation (36.6 of 62.2 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 54 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (20); a normal September there has highs of 90°F and 6.7 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 93 days a year, almost all from May to October. Lows fall below freezing on about 9 nights a year. That 62.2 inches is more than at 306 of the 312 Texas stations used on this site (98%). Vidor, 17 miles north, has its own station (Beaumont City, TX): 65.1 inches a year, 2.9 more than here, and the same August average high, 93°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Port Arthur, TX, 3 miles south, averaged 88°F in August and 56°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from June to September. Sea level at the Sabine Pass tide gauge, 13 miles from Port Arthur, has risen 2.43 ± 0.15 inches per decade from 1958 to 2020, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 24.3 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 136 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 98 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Port Arthur: 58 thunderstorm wind reports, 32 flash floods, 5 lightning strikes and 3 floods. They killed 17 people and injured 4, and the NWS estimated $4.51 billion in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 85 mph, on May 2, 2024. June has had the most flash floods, 6 of 32. Of the 745 Texas cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 580 have had fewer than Port Arthur.

Flood insurance policyholders in Port Arthur's 2 ZIP codes have filed 6,858 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $440.5 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Harvey in 2017: 3,165 claims (46% of all) and $389.6 million, then Hurricane Rita in 2005 with 858 and Hurricane Ike in 2008 with 624. 88% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 433 Texas cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 428 have fewer than Port Arthur.