NHC HURDAT2 · SPC Tornado Database
Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit San Francisco, CA
Every tropical system within 75 miles since 1851 and every tornado within 25 miles since 1950.
Data: NOAA NHC HURDAT2 and NOAA SPC tornado and hail reports, through 2025 · Updated
No tropical storm or hurricane has passed within 75 miles of San Francisco, California since records began in 1851. Since 1950, 6 tornadoes have touched down within 25 miles, 0 of them rated EF3 or stronger.
- Hurricanes
- 0
- Tropical storms
- 0
- Tornadoes
- 6
- EF3 or stronger
- 0
within 75 mi, since 1851
below hurricane strength
within 25 mi, since 1950
no recorded deaths
What the records show for San Francisco
The highest rating among the 6 tornadoes within 25 miles is F1, reached 2 times; the most recent, on March 20, 2005, came within 8 miles. Of the 6, none had a path within 5 miles of the city centre, and one has come since 2000. Of the 705 California cities on this site, 75% have more tornadoes within 25 miles than San Francisco. Hail has been reported within 10 miles 13 times since 2017, with stones up to 0.5 inches (marble size). San Francisco has more hail reports within 10 miles than 94% of the 705 California cities.
Compare San Francisco's storm record with another city →
Tornadoes within 25 miles of San Francisco
By decade
- 2000s1
- 1990s3
- 1980s1
- 1950s1
| Date | Rating | Distance | Path | Killed / injured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 20, 2005 | F1 | 8 mi | 3 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Apr 1, 1958 | F1 | 11 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Dec 5, 1998 | F0 | 13 mi | 1.5 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Feb 7, 1998 | F0 | 20 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Dec 17, 1992 | F0 | 16 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
| Mar 10, 1986 | F0 | 17 mi | 0.2 mi | 0 / 0 |
The strongest 6 of 6, by rating and then by deaths. Ratings before February 2007 are on the original Fujita scale.
Hail in San Francisco
The Storm Prediction Center has 13 hail reports within 10 miles of San Francisco since 2017. None of them reached 1 inch. The largest, 0.5 inches (marble size), fell on November 29, 2018. The most recent report is from March 28, 2023. January has the most reports, 5.
Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather reports, data through 2025.
Weather by month in San Francisco
The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is San Francisco Dwtn, CA, in San Francisco at 150 feet. September is the warmest, with an average high of 70°F and low of 56°F; January is the coolest, at 58°F and 47°F. December is the wettest at 4.8 inches of precipitation on average and July the driest at 0.0 inches; the year adds up to 23.0 inches over 45 days with at least a tenth of an inch. Highs reach 90°F on about 3 days a year, almost all from September. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 23.0 inches is more than at 160 of the 226 California stations used on this site (71%). Daly City, 5 miles south, has its own station (San Francisco Oceanside, CA): 20.6 inches a year, 2.4 less than here, and a September average high of 65°F against 70°F.
Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Alameda, CA, 8 miles east, averaged 69°F in August and 53°F in January over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the San Francisco tide gauge, 4 miles from San Francisco, has risen 0.78 ± 0.03 inches per decade from 1897 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 7.8 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 37 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.
| Month | High °F | Low °F | Precip. in | Days ≥ 0.1" | Water °F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 58 | 47 | 4.4 | 8 | 53 |
| Feb | 60 | 48 | 4.4 | 8 | 54 |
| Mar | 62 | 49 | 3.2 | 7 | 57 |
| Apr | 63 | 50 | 1.6 | 4 | 61 |
| May | 64 | 51 | 0.7 | 2 | 64 |
| Jun | 67 | 53 | 0.2 | 1 | 67 |
| Jul | 66 | 54 | 0.0 | 0 | 68 |
| Aug | 68 | 56 | 0.1 | 0 | 69 |
| Sep | 70 | 56 | 0.1 | 0 | 69 |
| Oct | 70 | 54 | 0.9 | 2 | 65 |
| Nov | 64 | 51 | 2.6 | 5 | 59 |
| Dec | 58 | 47 | 4.8 | 8 | 54 |
| Year | 64 | 51 | 23.0 | 45 | 62 |
Averages for 1991–2020 at San Francisco Dwtn, CA (150 ft), from NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals; water temperature: average of hourly readings 2021–2025 at the NOAA tide station Alameda, CA, from NOAA Tides & Currents. Normals describe the station; the farther a place is from it, and the bigger the difference in height, the more its weather can differ.
Floods, thunderstorm wind and lightning near San Francisco
Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 194 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of San Francisco: 159 floods, 16 heavy rain events, 9 thunderstorm wind reports, 8 lightning strikes and 2 flash floods. They killed 1 person and injured 9, and the NWS estimated $246,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 97 mph, on December 14, 2024.
January 14, 2023: thunderstorm wind 3 miles from the centre of San Francisco — 1 killed.
NWS: “A jogger near the intersection of JFK Drive and 30th Avenue within the Golden Gate Park noticed a woman down next to a fallen tree branch. Firefighters arrived to provide life-saving measures, but said that the victim had died.”
March 14, 2012: heavy rain event 9 miles from the centre of San Francisco — 5 injured, $50,000 damage.
March 1, 2024: thunderstorm wind 2 miles from the centre of San Francisco — 4 injured.
NWS: “A tree collapsed on a car early Friday evening at Golden Gate Avenue and Laguna Street, injuring 4 people in the vehicle.”
Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, events whose starting point is on record, 1996 to June 30, 2026. Damage is the NWS estimate in the dollars of the year, not insured losses, and NWS notes that some reports are unverified.
Flood insurance claims, disaster declarations and FEMA risk ratings
Flood insurance policyholders in San Francisco's 22 ZIP codes have filed 144 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $2.9 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1978: 61 claims (42% of all) and $471,000. The year with the most claims was 1982, with 45. 47% 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, 347 have fewer than San Francisco.
| Event | Claims | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Flooding1978 | 61 | $471,000 |
San Francisco County, which includes San Francisco, has been named in 11 federal disaster or emergency declarations since 1989, 7 of them major disasters (by incident: 4 severe storms, 3 floods, 2 biological emergencies, 1 earthquake). The latest major disaster declaration was Severe Winter Storms, Straight-Line Winds, Flooding, Landslides, and Mudslides, on April 3, 2023. FEMA's National Risk Index gives San Francisco County a Very High rating for natural hazard risk overall; by hazard: Relatively High for inland flooding; Relatively Moderate for coastal flooding and heat waves; Relatively Low for tornadoes and lightning; Very Low for hail and strong wind. It models the county's expected loss from all 18 hazards it covers at $853.4 million a year, the 9th highest of 58 California counties; of the hazards above, the largest share, $177.7 million (21%), is from inland flooding.
Claims: FEMA, OpenFEMA Dataset FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims – v3, summed over ZIP codes; payments in the dollars of each year, not adjusted for inflation. Declarations: Disaster Declarations Summaries – v2, by county. Retrieved October 25, 2026. This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).
Risk ratings: FEMA, National Risk Index county table, December 2025 (v1.20), retrieved October 26, 2026; ratings compare counties nationwide, are meant for planning and are no substitute for a local risk assessment. This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Risk Index dataset API or downloadable datasets but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).
What counts as a pass, the distances and the sources: how this storm history is built.
Cities near San Francisco
- Daly City, CA5 mi
- Brisbane, CA6 mi
- South San Francisco, CA7 mi
- Sausalito, CA7 mi
- San Bruno, CA9 mi
- Tiburon, CA9 mi
- Emeryville, CA10 mi
- Alameda, CA10 mi
- Pacifica, CA10 mi
- Mill Valley, CA11 mi
- Millbrae, CA11 mi
- Albany, CA12 mi
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