Coastal Bend Hurricane and High-Wind History, and What It Means for Your Garage Door

Thirty years of NOAA storm records for Nueces and San Patricio counties: hurricanes, tropical storms and the thunderstorm gusts that often rival them.

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Since 1996, NOAA has logged 13 tropical systems with wind or surge entries in Nueces or San Patricio County, but thunderstorms produced most of the area's damaging-wind reports.

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This page pulls the local records out of NOAA's Storm Events Database so Coastal Bend homeowners can see what has actually hit here, month by month. The counting method is at the bottom.

Tropical systems in NOAA's records for Nueces and San Patricio, 1996 to mid-2026

Each row is a named system (or depression) with at least one Hurricane, Tropical Storm or Storm Surge/Tide entry for either county. Landfall locations and local details come from the NOAA narratives.

Date	System	Where it came ashore	What NOAA recorded in Nueces or San Patricio
Jul 2003	Hurricane Claudette	Near Port O'Connor (Calhoun County), Category 1	Hurricane entry for San Patricio County
Jul 2008	Hurricane Dolly	Cameron and Willacy county shoreline, Category 2	Tropical-storm-force sustained wind as far north as NAS Corpus Christi; part of the Memorial Coliseum roof torn off; storm tides of 3 to 4 ft
Sep 2008	Hurricane Ike	Near Galveston	Surge of 2 to 4 ft in bays and on the barrier islands; low areas of Corpus Christi, Mustang and Padre Islands flooded
Jun-Jul 2010	Hurricane Alex, then Tropical Depression Two	Northern Mexico; near Brownsville	45 mph sustained wind on the barrier islands; storm tides of 2 to 4 ft
Sep 2010	Tropical Storm Hermine	Northeast Mexico	55 mph gust at Corpus Christi International Airport; carports, fences and trees damaged; 6,526 Nueces customers lost power
Jun 2015	Tropical Storm Bill	Matagorda Island	Storm tide of 2 to 3 ft in Nueces County
Aug 2017	Hurricane Harvey	San Jose Island and the Rockport-Fulton area, Category 4	Nueces: 4,170 homes with major damage and 1,036 destroyed, mostly in Port Aransas; lost shingles and downed fences common in Corpus Christi. San Patricio: about 8,700 homes affected; "widespread minor roof damage and fences blown down in Portland"
Jul 2020	Hurricane Hanna	Kenedy County, 90 mph	Tropical-storm-force wind; surge of 2.5 to 4.5 ft; 5.48 ft above mean higher high water at Bob Hall Pier, which lost its T-head
Sep 2020	Tropical Storm Beta	Southern end of Matagorda Peninsula	2 to 3.5 ft of inundation; Ocean Drive causeway closed near NAS
Aug 2021	Hurricane Grace	Stayed in the southern Gulf, per NOAA	Long-period swells; minor beach flooding on North Padre Island
Sep 2021	Tropical Storm Nicholas	Near Sargent, minimal hurricane	Tropical-storm-force gusts on the coast and islands; surge of 2 to 3 ft
Aug 2023	Tropical Storm Harold	South of Baffin Bay, 50 mph	Gusts of 63 mph at NAS, 62 mph at the airport, 48 mph near Portland; fence and tree damage in Flour Bluff

Swells and tides from more distant storms, including Josephine (1996), Ingrid (2013), Cristobal and Delta (2020) and Alberto (2024), show up in the same records as Coastal Flood entries instead. Alberto pushed about 3 to 3.5 ft of inundation along the Middle Texas coast.

Older storms. NOAA's event-by-event records start in 1996. The National Weather Service Corpus Christi office keeps a western Gulf track list back to 1851. For Celia (August 1970), the office records a 161 mph gust at its Corpus Christi site, estimated gusts of 160 mph at Portland and Odem and 180 mph at Robstown, and damage to about 70% of Corpus Christi residences. The NWS says Harvey was the first major hurricane to make landfall on the Middle Texas coast since Celia.

Damaging wind by month: thunderstorms, fronts and wake lows

Tropical systems are rare in any one year. Thunderstorm and frontal wind is not. This table counts NOAA's Thunderstorm Wind, High Wind and Strong Wind entries for the two counties, January 1996 through June 2026.

Month	Wind events	Days with events	Strongest measured gust	Where and when
January	11	4	69 mph	Corpus Christi International Airport, Jan 9, 2011
February	7	4	63 mph	Corpus Christi International Airport, Feb 25, 2013
March	58	20	78 mph	NAS Corpus Christi, Mar 18, 2016
April	34	15	64 mph	Coastal Nueces County, Apr 11, 2022
May	108	39	84 mph	NAS Corpus Christi, May 11, 2026
June	40	18	67 mph	Waldron Field, Jun 2, 2010
July	1	1	no measured gust
August	11	7	60 mph	Near Calallen, Aug 18, 2020
September	21	13	83 mph	Ingleside, Sep 12, 2003
October	7	6	81 mph	NAS Corpus Christi, Oct 26, 2009
November	13	4	69 mph	Portland, Nov 1, 2025
December	3	3	60 mph	Nueces County, Dec 24, 2009
Total	314

Estimated winds, from NWS damage surveys rather than instruments, ran higher still in a few storms:

June 2, 2010, NAS Corpus Christi and Padre Island: a survey team estimated 80 to 90 mph straight-line winds. Recreational vehicles were flipped, six people were hurt, and "one hangar door was blown off its tracks."
January 9, 2011, Portland: straight-line winds estimated as high as 100 mph on the northwest side of town; three mobile homes destroyed and widespread roof damage.
May 8, 2025, Driscoll, Petronila and Agua Dulce: an NWS survey estimated winds up to 115 mph. Power poles snapped, mobile homes were blown off foundations, and carports collapsed.

What the two tables show, without claiming more than the data can: May and March produced the most wind reports, and a May 2026 thunderstorm gusted to 84 mph at NAS Corpus Christi, not far below the 77 knots (about 89 mph) the NWS lists for Harvey at the same station. For a garage door, that means the strongest local gusts haven't come only from hurricanes, and thunderstorm wind comes far more often.

What this history means for a garage door

The door is the big opening. The Texas Department of Insurance says garage doors are "particularly vulnerable to high winds, because of the long span of the opening they cover and the relatively lightweight material they are made of." That holds for a spring squall line as much as for a hurricane.

Before a storm. Close the door fully; a door left open or partly open catches wind. TDI describes two ways to strengthen the opening: replace the door and track together with a system designed for high winds and windborne debris, or use a tested, approved impact-resistant covering. If someone offers a brace or retrofit kit, ask what testing it has; our hurricane prep checklist covers what DASMA says about braces. For ratings, TDI labels and the TWIA and WPI-8 questions, see our wind-rated garage door guide.

After a storm, look before you press the button. DASMA's TDS 167 checklist is written so a homeowner or inspector can go through it in about 15 minutes, and it says that if any answer is "No," stop and call a trained door systems technician. Check for:

Dents, cracked sections or a section that bows
Bent horizontal struts, or track pulled away from the wall
Rollers out of the track, or a door hanging crooked
Frayed cables or a gap in a torsion spring
Broken window inserts

Respect the springs. DASMA says springs and spring hardware are under high tension, and that if a spring is broken, you shouldn't operate the door until it's replaced. Its homeowner tips say bottom brackets are "under extreme tension" and that cables should be replaced only by trained technicians. The danger is real even for professionals: a 1992 New Jersey workplace-death investigation, archived by the CDC, describes an overhead door mechanic who died after a torsion spring assembly's center plate came loose, spun violently, struck him and knocked him off a ladder.

Salt air adds up. Storm surge and spray leave salt on tracks, springs and hardware. Our salt air garage door care guide covers rinsing and rust checks. If a storm bent the track or snapped a cable, start with cable, roller and track repair, and for TWIA deadlines and estimates, the storm damage claims guide.

How we counted

Source. We downloaded NOAA NCEI's Storm Events "details" files for 1996 through 2026 on October 24, 2026 (the 2026 file runs through June). We kept Texas rows whose county or forecast zone name contains "Nueces" or "San Patricio," including NOAA's newer split zones such as Coastal Nueces, Inland Nueces and Nueces County Islands.
Tropical table. We grouped Hurricane, Tropical Storm and Storm Surge/Tide entries by NOAA episode and read each narrative for the storm name, landfall and local effects. Coastal Flood entries tied to distant storms are listed separately.
Wind table. We counted Thunderstorm Wind, High Wind and Strong Wind entries by month. "Strongest measured gust" uses only entries NOAA marks as measured, converted from knots at 1.15 mph per knot. One storm can create several entries across zones, so counts are records, not separate storms.
Limits. Records depend on what was reported and surveyed. They show where wind and surge were documented, not every gust that occurred, and they don't predict the next season.

Updated October 24, 2026.

Common questions

When did a hurricane last hit Corpus Christi directly?

The National Weather Service calls Harvey (August 2017) the first Category 4, and first major, hurricane to make landfall on the Middle Texas coast since Celia in 1970. Harvey came ashore near Rockport. Hanna (2020) made landfall in Kenedy County as a 90 mph hurricane and brought tropical-storm-force wind and storm surge to Nueces County.

Are thunderstorms or hurricanes the bigger wind risk in Corpus Christi?

Both matter. In NOAA's records, a May 11, 2026 thunderstorm produced an 84 mph gust at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi; the NWS lists Harvey's peak gust at the same station as 77 knots (about 89 mph). Thunderstorm wind events are far more frequent: NOAA logged 314 thunderstorm, high-wind and strong-wind events in the two counties from 1996 to mid-2026.

Should I brace my garage door before a hurricane?

TDI describes two ways to strengthen a garage door opening: replace the door and track with a system designed for high winds and windborne debris, or use a tested, approved impact-resistant covering. If you're offered a brace or retrofit kit, ask what testing it has. Close the door fully before any storm.

What should I check on my garage door after a storm?

Look before you run it: dents, cracked sections, bent struts or track, rollers out of the track, and frayed cables. If a spring is broken, DASMA says not to operate the door until the spring is replaced. Leave springs, cables and bottom brackets to a trained door technician.

Sources (9)

Last updated 2026-10-24