Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit St Petersburg, FL

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is St Petersburg, FL, 4 miles southeast of St Petersburg at 8 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 91°F and low of 77°F; January is the coolest, at 70°F and 54°F. August is the wettest at 9.3 inches of precipitation on average and November the driest at 1.6 inches; the year adds up to 52.5 inches over 69 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 70% of the year's precipitation (36.5 of 52.5 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 79 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (28); a normal September there has highs of 89°F and 7.5 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 75 days a year, almost all from May to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 52.5 inches is more than at 42 of the 125 Florida stations used on this site (34%). Pinellas Park, 4 miles northwest, has its own station (St Petersburg International Airport, FL): 53.5 inches a year, 1.0 more than here, and the same August average high, 91°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station St. Petersburg, FL, 4 miles southeast, averaged 88°F in July and 63°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from May to September. Sea level at the St. Petersburg tide gauge, 4 miles from St Petersburg, has risen 1.23 ± 0.05 inches per decade from 1947 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 12.3 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 72 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 185 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of St Petersburg: 117 thunderstorm wind reports, 49 lightning strikes, 12 heavy rain events, 4 floods and 3 flash floods. They killed 6 people and injured 22, and the NWS estimated $9.3 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 90 mph, on January 25, 2011.

Flood insurance policyholders in St Petersburg's 14 ZIP codes have filed 24,282 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $1.74 billion for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Helene in 2024: 10,450 claims (43% of all) and $1.46 billion, then Hurricane Elena in 1985 with 3,407 and Hurricane Josephine in 1996 with 2,249. 94% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 340 Florida cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 338 have fewer than St Petersburg.