Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Swampscott, MA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Marblehead, MA, 3 miles northeast of Swampscott at 84 feet. July is the warmest, with an average high of 80°F and low of 61°F; January is the coolest, at 36°F and 18°F. October is the wettest at 5.0 inches of precipitation on average and August the driest at 3.3 inches; the year adds up to 48.2 inches over 84 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 49% of the year's precipitation (23.7 of 48.2 inches); the other six months are wetter. September has brought the most of the 47 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (19); a normal September there has highs of 72°F and 3.6 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 9 days a year, almost all from June to August. Lows fall below freezing on about 108 nights a year. Snowfall averages 39.1 inches a year, most of it in January. That 48.2 inches is more than at 31 of the 65 Massachusetts stations used on this site (48%). Peabody, 5 miles northwest, has its own station (Beverly Municipal Airport, MA): 44.9 inches a year, 3.3 less than here, and a July average high of 82°F against 80°F.

Sea level at the Boston tide gauge, 11 miles from Swampscott, has risen 1.17 ± 0.03 inches per decade from 1921 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 11.7 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 68 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 326 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Swampscott: 188 thunderstorm wind reports, 80 floods, 36 flash floods and 22 lightning strikes. They killed 0 people and injured 6, and the NWS estimated $18.8 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 90 mph, on July 11, 2006. July has had the most flash floods, 15 of 36. Of the 339 Massachusetts cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 280 have had fewer than Swampscott.

Flood insurance policyholders in Swampscott's ZIP code 01907 have filed 411 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $4.1 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1978: 82 claims (20% of all) and $590,000, then The "Halloween" Storm in 1991 with 66 and Not a named storm in 1979 with 36. The year with the most claims was 1991, with 67. 53% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 229 Massachusetts cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 217 have fewer than Swampscott.