Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Smyrna, DE

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Dover, DE, 12 miles southeast of Smyrna at 30 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 87°F and low of 69°F; January is the coolest, at 44°F and 28°F. August is the wettest at 4.9 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 3.1 inches; the year adds up to 47.7 inches over 74 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 53% of the year's precipitation (25.4 of 47.7 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 47 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (17); a normal September there has highs of 79°F and 4.3 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 25 days a year, almost all from May to September. Lows fall below freezing on about 79 nights a year. Snowfall averages 13.2 inches a year, most of it in February. That 47.7 inches is more than at 8 of the 11 Delaware stations used on this site (73%). Middletown, 14 miles northwest, has its own station (Newark Ag Farm, DE): 47.0 inches a year, 0.7 less than here, and a July average high of 89°F against 87°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Reedy Point, DE, 18 miles north, averaged 83°F in July and 38°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from July to August. Sea level at the Reedy Point tide gauge, 18 miles from Smyrna, has risen 1.55 ± 0.09 inches per decade from 1956 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 15.5 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 93 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 154 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Smyrna: 101 thunderstorm wind reports, 23 heavy rain events, 15 floods, 14 flash floods and 1 lightning strike. They killed 0 people and injured 1, and the NWS estimated $1.9 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 81 mph, on June 26, 1998. August has had the most flash floods, 6 of 14. Of the 37 Delaware cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 17 have had fewer than Smyrna.

Flood insurance policyholders in Smyrna's ZIP code 19977 have filed 48 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $380,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. 40% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 24 Delaware cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 7 have fewer than Smyrna.