Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Vacherie, LA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Reserve, LA, 10 miles northeast of Vacherie at 15 feet. July and August are the warmest, with an average high of 92°F and low of 75°F; January is the coolest, at 62°F and 43°F. June is the wettest at 8.6 inches of precipitation on average and October the driest at 4.1 inches; the year adds up to 67.2 inches over 80 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 53% of the year's precipitation (35.6 of 67.2 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 72 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (29); a normal September there has highs of 88°F and 5.8 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 79 days a year, almost all from May to October. Lows fall below freezing on about 13 nights a year. That 67.2 inches is more than at 78 of the 81 Louisiana stations used on this site (96%). Thibodaux, 14 miles southwest, has its own station (Thibodaux 4 SE, LA): 71.3 inches a year, 4.1 more than here, and the same July average high, 92°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station West Bank 1, Bayou Gauche, LA, 22 miles southeast, averaged 88°F in July and August and 56°F in January over 2021–2025. It averaged 80°F or warmer from May to September. Sea level at the New Canal tide gauge, 36 miles from Vacherie, has risen 2.36 ± 0.19 inches per decade from 1982 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 23.6 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 131 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 59 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Vacherie: 48 thunderstorm wind reports, 9 flash floods, 1 heavy rain event and 1 lightning strike. They killed 1 person and injured 0, and the NWS estimated $33.5 million in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 75 mph, on March 26, 2009. September has had the most flash floods, 3 of 9. Of the 239 Louisiana cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 61 have had fewer than Vacherie.

Flood insurance policyholders in Vacherie's ZIP code 70090 have filed 198 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1980, and were paid $2.5 million for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1998: 33 claims (17% of all) and $231,000, then Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 with 22 and Hurricane Isaac in 2012 with 21. The year with the most claims was 2021, with 25. 82% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 219 Louisiana cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 103 have fewer than Vacherie.