Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Vega Alta, PR

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Dorado 2 WNW, PR RQ, 4 miles northeast of Vega Alta at 5 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 88°F and low of 74°F; January is the coolest, at 79°F and 67°F. November is the wettest at 8.2 inches of precipitation on average and March the driest at 2.4 inches; the year adds up to 66.0 inches over 120 days with at least a tenth of an inch. June to November, the hurricane season months, bring 59% of the year's precipitation (38.9 of 66.0 inches); the other six months are drier. September has brought the most of the 64 tropical systems that passed within 75 miles (29); a normal September there has highs of 87°F and 6.5 inches of precipitation. Highs reach 90°F on about 48 days a year, almost all from March to November. A night below freezing comes less than once a year on average. That 66.0 inches is more than at 14 of the 21 Puerto Rico stations used on this site (67%). Vega Baja, 4 miles west, has its own station (Palmarejo Vega Baja, PR RQ): 64.5 inches a year, 1.5 less than here, and the same August average high, 88°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station San Juan, La Puntilla, San Juan Bay, PR, 14 miles east, averaged 86°F in September and 80°F in February over 2021–2025. Sea level at the San Juan tide gauge, 14 miles from Vega Alta, has risen 0.85 ± 0.06 inches per decade from 1962 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.5 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 45 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 381 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Vega Alta: 203 flash floods, 110 floods, 44 heavy rain events, 21 thunderstorm wind reports and 3 lightning strikes. They killed 3 people and injured 1, and the NWS estimated $1.51 billion in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 58 mph, on June 22, 2015. May has had the most flash floods, 49 of 203. Of the 86 Puerto Rico cities on this site with a flash flood on record, 69 have had fewer than Vega Alta.

Flood insurance policyholders in Vega Alta's ZIP code 00692 have filed 60 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1979, and were paid $242,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The year with the most claims was 1988, with 22. 27% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 72 Puerto Rico cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 28 have fewer than Vega Alta.