Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit South Houston, TX

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Houston Hobby Airport, TX, 4 miles southwest of South Houston at 44 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 94°F and low of 77°F; January is the coolest, at 64°F and 46°F. June is the wettest at 6.1 inches of precipitation on average and February the driest at 2.9 inches; the year adds up to 55.7 inches over 66 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 57% of the year's precipitation (31.6 of 55.7 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 55 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (18); a normal September there has highs of 89°F and 5.8 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 101 days a year, almost all from May to October. Lows fall below freezing on about 4 nights a year. That 55.7 inches is more than at 295 of the 312 Texas stations used on this site (95%). Galena Park, 5 miles north, has its own station (Houston-Port, TX): 54.3 inches a year, 1.4 less than here, and the same August average high, 94°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Manchester, TX, 5 miles northwest, averaged 89°F in August and 60°F in February over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from June to October. Sea level at the Morgans Point tide gauge, 15 miles from South Houston, has risen 1.50 ± 0.24 inches per decade from 1993 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 15.0 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 90 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 280 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of South Houston: 206 thunderstorm wind reports, 50 flash floods, 15 lightning strikes, 5 heavy rain events and 4 floods. They killed 11 people and injured 21, and the NWS estimated $44.0 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 92 mph, on September 2, 1997. August has had the most flash floods, 10 of 50. Of the 745 Texas cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 673 have had fewer than South Houston.

Flood insurance policyholders in South Houston's ZIP code 77587 have filed 1,234 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $38.7 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Harvey in 2017: 415 claims (34% of all) and $27.3 million, then Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 with 197 and Flooding in 1981 with 157. 75% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 433 Texas cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 382 have fewer than South Houston.