Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Rockaway Park, NY

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is New York Jfk International Airport, NY, 6 miles northeast of Rockaway Park at 11 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 84°F and low of 69°F; January is the coolest, at 40°F and 26°F. August is the wettest at 4.1 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 2.8 inches; the year adds up to 43.5 inches over 74 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 51% of the year's precipitation (22.3 of 43.5 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 51 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (22); a normal September there has highs of 76°F and 3.6 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 11 days a year, almost all from June to August. Lows fall below freezing on about 74 nights a year. Snowfall averages 25.9 inches a year, most of it in February. That 43.5 inches is more than at 66 of the 137 New York stations used on this site (48%). Breezy Point, 3 miles west, has its own station (Ny Ave V Brooklyn, NY): 47.1 inches a year, 3.6 more than here, and a July average high of 85°F against 84°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Sandy Hook, NJ, 11 miles southwest, averaged 77°F in July and 38°F in January over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the Sandy Hook tide gauge, 11 miles from Rockaway Park, has risen 1.68 ± 0.04 inches per decade from 1932 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 16.8 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 105 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 253 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Rockaway Park: 119 thunderstorm wind reports, 86 flash floods, 28 floods, 18 lightning strikes and 2 heavy rain events. They killed 4 people and injured 28, and the NWS estimated $621,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 125 mph, on September 16, 2010. August has had the most flash floods, 24 of 86. Of the 798 New York cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 623 have had fewer than Rockaway Park.

Flood insurance policyholders in Rockaway Park's ZIP code 11694 have filed 2,319 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $157.0 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Sandy in 2012: 1,745 claims (75% of all) and $153.4 million, then December Storm - Nor'easter in 1992 with 111 and Hurricane Irene in 2011 with 92. 91% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 549 New York cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 537 have fewer than Rockaway Park.