Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Saint Marys, GA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Brunswick 23 S, GA, 7 miles northeast of Saint Marys at 25 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 89°F and low of 74°F; January is the coolest, at 62°F and 43°F. August is the wettest at 6.5 inches of precipitation on average and November the driest at 1.7 inches; the year adds up to 47.2 inches over 68 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 61% of the year's precipitation (28.7 of 47.2 inches); the other six months are drier. October has brought the most of the 94 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (30); a normal October there has highs of 79°F and 4.4 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 40 days a year, almost all from May to September. Lows fall below freezing on about 12 nights a year. That 47.2 inches is more than at 16 of the 108 Georgia stations used on this site (15%). Kingsland, 7 miles west, has its own station (Woodbine, GA): 54.5 inches a year, 7.3 more than here, and a July average high of 91°F against 89°F.

Sea level at the Fernandina Beach tide gauge, 9 miles from Saint Marys, has risen 0.91 ± 0.03 inches per decade from 1897 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 9.1 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 53 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 242 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Saint Marys: 193 thunderstorm wind reports, 33 heavy rain events, 9 lightning strikes and 7 floods. They killed 0 people and injured 1, and the NWS estimated $377,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 115 mph, on July 13, 1999.

Flood insurance policyholders in Saint Marys's ZIP code 31558 have filed 125 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $1.6 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Irma in 2017: 37 claims (30% of all) and $858,000, then Hurricane Matthew in 2016 with 18. 54% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 154 Georgia cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 125 have fewer than Saint Marys.