Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Rye, NH

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Greenland, NH, 3 miles northwest of Rye at 95 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 81°F and low of 60°F; January is the coolest, at 33°F and 16°F. October is the wettest at 5.0 inches of precipitation on average and January and February the driest at 3.6 inches; the year adds up to 50.9 inches over 84 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 50% of the year's precipitation (25.4 of 50.9 inches). September has brought the most of the 42 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (17); a normal September there has highs of 72°F and 4.1 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 143 nights a year. Snowfall averages 65.0 inches a year, most of it in January. That 50.9 inches is more than at 36 of the 39 New Hampshire stations used on this site (92%). Eliot, ME, 9 miles north, has its own station (Durham 2 N, NH): 48.0 inches a year, 2.9 less than here, and the same July average high, 81°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Seavey Island, ME, 6 miles north, averaged 64°F in August and 37°F in February over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the Seavey Island tide gauge, 6 miles from Rye, has risen 0.87 ± 0.04 inches per decade from 1926 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.7 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 48 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 93 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Rye: 77 thunderstorm wind reports, 10 floods, 5 lightning strikes and 1 flash flood. They killed 0 people and injured 11, and the NWS estimated $6.7 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 112 mph, on August 10, 2001.

Flood insurance policyholders in Rye's ZIP code 03870 have filed 223 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $2.3 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from The "Halloween" Storm in 1991: 52 claims (23% of all) and $343,000, then Flooding in 1996 with 10. 29% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 60 New Hampshire cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 58 have fewer than Rye.