Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Sunrise, FL

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Fort Lauderdale, FL, 7 miles southeast of Sunrise at 16 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 91°F and low of 76°F; January is the coolest, at 76°F and 58°F. September is the wettest at 10.0 inches of precipitation on average and December the driest at 2.7 inches; the year adds up to 69.0 inches over 94 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 69% of the year's precipitation (47.3 of 69.0 inches); the other six months are drier. October has brought the most of the 87 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (29); a normal October there has highs of 86°F and 7.3 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 75 days a year, almost all from April to October. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 69.0 inches is more than at 121 of the 125 Florida stations used on this site (97%). Tamarac, 5 miles northeast, has its own station (Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, FL): 56.6 inches a year, 12.4 less than here, and the same August average high, 91°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station South Port Everglades, FL, 12 miles southeast, averaged 96°F in August and 82°F in January over 2021–2025. Sea level at the Virginia Key tide gauge, 30 miles from Sunrise, has risen 1.26 ± 0.04 inches per decade from 1931 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 12.6 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 76 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 232 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Sunrise: 152 thunderstorm wind reports, 36 lightning strikes, 26 floods, 12 flash floods and 6 heavy rain events. They killed 4 people and injured 18, and the NWS estimated $5.5 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 92 mph, on August 25, 1997. October has had the most flash floods, 4 of 12. Of the 277 Florida cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 189 have had fewer than Sunrise.

Flood insurance policyholders in Sunrise's 3 ZIP codes have filed 1,741 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $5.5 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Hurricane Irene in 1999: 488 claims (28% of all) and $1.6 million, then Hurricane Wilma in 2005 with 241 and Flooding in 1979 with 235. 74% 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, 275 have fewer than Sunrise.