Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Rio Grande, PR

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Juncos 1 SE, PR RQ, 11 miles southwest of Rio Grande at 213 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 89°F and low of 72°F; January is the coolest, at 82°F and 65°F. September is the wettest at 8.7 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 2.5 inches; the year adds up to 67.5 inches over 113 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 64% of the year's precipitation (43.4 of 67.5 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 64 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (26); a normal September there has highs of 89°F and 8.7 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 104 days a year, almost all from March to November. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 67.5 inches is more than at 15 of the 21 Puerto Rico stations used on this site (71%). Canovanas, 5 miles west, has its own station (WFO San Juan, PR RQ): 65.4 inches a year, 2.1 less than here, and the same August average high, 89°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station San Juan, La Puntilla, San Juan Bay, PR, 20 miles west, averaged 86°F in September and 80°F in February over 2021–2025. Sea level at the San Juan tide gauge, 20 miles from Rio Grande, has risen 0.85 ± 0.06 inches per decade from 1962 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.5 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 45 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 217 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Rio Grande: 124 flash floods, 57 floods, 27 heavy rain events, 8 thunderstorm wind reports and 1 lightning strike. They killed 4 people and injured 4, and the NWS estimated $751.6 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 61 mph, on May 14, 2011. April has had the most flash floods, 27 of 124. Of the 86 Puerto Rico cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 57 have had fewer than Rio Grande.

Flood insurance policyholders in Rio Grande's ZIP code 00745 have filed 155 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $677,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Hugo in 1989: 23 claims (15% of all) and $59,000, then Hurricane Georges in 1998 with 19 and Flooding in 1987 with 10. The year with the most claims was 1998, with 23. 59% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 72 Puerto Rico cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 41 have fewer than Rio Grande.