Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit San Diego, CA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is San Diego Montgomery Field, CA, 1 mile northwest of San Diego at 417 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 82°F and low of 65°F; December is the coolest, at 67°F and 45°F. February is the wettest at 2.7 inches of precipitation on average and August the driest at 0.0 inches; the year adds up to 11.1 inches over 20 days with at least a tenth of an inch. Highs reach 90°F on about 16 days a year, almost all from July to November. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 11.1 inches is more than at 50 of the 226 California stations used on this site (22%). La Mesa, 7 miles east, has its own station (El Cajon, CA): 11.6 inches a year, 0.5 more than here, and an August average high of 89°F against 82°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station San Diego, CA, 6 miles southwest, averaged 72°F in August and 59°F in January over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the San Diego tide gauge, 6 miles from San Diego, has risen 0.88 ± 0.03 inches per decade from 1906 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.8 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 51 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 179 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of San Diego: 78 floods, 53 flash floods, 20 thunderstorm wind reports, 19 heavy rain events and 9 lightning strikes. They killed 5 people and injured 10, and the NWS estimated $45.0 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 68 mph, on January 31, 2016. January has had the most flash floods, 21 of 53. Of the 550 California cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 545 have had fewer than San Diego.

Flood insurance policyholders in San Diego's 30 ZIP codes have filed 795 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $25.3 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1988: 148 claims (19% of all) and $873,000, then San Diego Flooding in 2024 with 118 and Pineapple Express - Southern in 1998 with 53. The year with the most claims was 2024, with 135. 46% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 415 California cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 406 have fewer than San Diego.