Foley

Every recorded tornado

1. Injuries and deaths are for the tornado’s whole path, which may extend beyond this area.
2. Weak tornadoes were under-recorded before Doppler radar coverage became national in the early 1990s, so earlier decades read low. Ratings use the Fujita scale before February 2007 and the Enhanced Fujita scale after.

Storm Prediction Center severe weather database, 1950 to 2025.

Every storm within 100 miles

1. Tropical storms and hurricanes (34 kt or more, still tropical) at closest approach. Post-tropical remnants with gale-force winds are listed but not counted. Direct: track within 50 miles; near: within 100 miles. Distance is measured to the county boundary for counties and to the city centre for cities, using positions interpolated hourly between HURDAT2 fixes.

National Hurricane Center HURDAT2, 1851 to 2025.

Every large fire

1. Large fires mapped by the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity program since 1984: 1,000 acres or more in the West, 500 or more in the East. Prescribed burns are excluded. Acres here are the part of each perimeter inside this place.

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service), 1984 to 2026.

Smoke overhead

1. A smoke day is a date on which a smoke plume traced by NOAA Hazard Mapping System analysts from satellite imagery covered this place's point (the county's population centre or the city centre). Counts here are of medium or heavy smoke. Since 2018 analysts have often drawn light smoke as one area over most of the continent, so light-smoke counts are not comparable from year to year. The plumes show smoke anywhere in the air above, not air quality at the ground, and smoke hidden by cloud is missed.

NOAA Hazard Mapping System smoke analysis, 2011 to 2026, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Flood insurance figures are for Baldwin County, the county that contains Foley.

Claims by ZIP code

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3, refreshed August 4, 2026. NOAA Storm Events through 2026.

River crests

River gauges in Baldwin County, the county that contains Foley.

River gauges

1. Crests are the highest and the recent crests the National Weather Service lists for each river gauge in the county that has a flood stage, not every flood. Flood categories use each gauge's current flood stages; crests from before levees, dams or channel changes may not be comparable. Crests measured on an old datum are left out of the rankings.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service gauge records, retrieved October 30, 2026.

The drought index is for Baldwin County, the county that contains Foley.

1. The Palmer Drought Severity Index is computed by NOAA each month from the county's average temperature and precipitation, relative to the county's own climate. Zero is normal; -3 or lower is severe drought and -4 or lower extreme drought. It describes the long-term balance of moisture, not water supply or crop losses.

NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county Palmer Drought Severity Index, 1895 to September 2026, issued October 6, 2026.

1. Earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more in the USGS Comprehensive Catalog since 1900. Within 50 miles means the epicentre lies within 50 miles of the city centre.
2. Small earthquakes were under-recorded before the modern seismic networks of the 1970s and are still missed in remote areas, so early decades read low. Magnitudes are as the catalogue reports them and mix scales (moment, local and body-wave).

USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog, 1900 to present, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Mapped landslides

Landslides mapped in Baldwin County.

Mapped by NASA (1).

1. Landslides mapped in the USGS compilation of landslide inventories across the United States (version 3.0, 2025), rated probable or better. The compilation joins inventories made by federal and state agencies for different purposes and areas, so the number mapped in a county reflects how closely it has been surveyed as much as how often its slopes fail. An area with few records may simply not have been mapped. Deaths are as recorded in the inventories; a slide listed in two inventories is counted once.

USGS Landslide Inventories across the United States, version 3.0, retrieved October 27, 2026.

More event types since 1996

Costliest events since 1996

1. Sep 15, 2020Hurricane (Typhoon), Baldwin Coastal$234 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   Hurricane Sally made landfall in Gulf Shores, AL at 5am on Wednesday, September 16th as a strong Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. Sally produced widespread wind, storm surge, and freshwater flooding across coastal AL and the western Florida Panhandle. Flood and wind damage also extended well inland into inland southwest Alabama and south central Alabama. Sally was an extremely slow moving hurricane, which prolonged and exacerbated the local impacts. The storm was moving at less than 5 mph at the time of landfall, resulting in a long duration of tropical storm and hurricane force winds, storm surge, and torrential rainfall. ||Storm surge and resultant…

2. Sep 25, 1998Hurricane (Typhoon), Lower Baldwin$82.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   For the second time in less than a month, the area was again threatened by a hurricane. Hurricane Georges affected the region September 25 through the 29. The coastal areas from Dauphin Island to east of Destin were put under a hurricane watch at 900 AM CST, September 25. A hurricane warning was issued for the area at 900 AM CST, September 26. The hurricane warning was changed to a tropical storm warning for the area at 300 PM CST, September 28. All tropical storm warnings for the area were dropped at 900 AM CST, September 29.Georges made landfall along the Mississippi coast near Biloxi between 300 and 500 AM CST, September 28.Some of the winds recorded across Southwest Alabama…

3. Jul 18, 1997Hurricane (Typhoon), Lower Baldwin$60.5 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   Hurricane Danny moved inland from the Gulf of Mexico at a snails pace. The center of the storm moved across Fort Morgan and into Mobile Bay during the early morning hours on Saturday. The storm remained nearly stationary over Mobile Bay for eight hours. Danny then creeped east, making landfall at Mullet Point, near Weeks Bay during the afternoon. The storm continued moving slowly east across Baldwin county reaching Orange Beach during the evening. Danny then drifted north along the Alabama and Florida border, weakening to a depression near Walnut Hill Florida late Sunday morning. Danny continued to drift north and passed through and out of Clarke county during the day Monday.…

4. Apr 29, 2014Flash Flood$27.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   The southern half of Baldwin county experienced historic flooding the night of April 29th into the early morning of April 30th. Rain totals of 12 to 24 inches were reported, with the maximum rainfall occurring in a swath from Foley south to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, east to the Florida state line. The highest reported was 23.67 inches in Orange Beach via a CoCoRAHS observer. The Fish River at Silverhill crested at record high level of 23.18 feet. The Styx River at Elsanor experienced its second highest crest on record at 20.90 feet. ||1400 homes and businesses experienced flooding and private property losses are estimated at $17 million with another $10 million estimated for…

5. Nov 9, 2009High Surf, Lower Baldwin$8.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   High surf and extensive wave run-up along the Baldwin County beaches resulted in an estimated 9 million dollar loss of beach sand along the resort areas from Fort Morgan east to Orange Beach. 20 foot waves also damaged portions of the Gulf State Park Pier near Gulf Shores, which had recently re-opened after being destroyed by Hurricane Ivan. Most of the damage to the pier was from damage to railings, plumbing and outdoor lighting from the movable deck panels being moved by the waves. No dollar damage estimates were available from the Gulf State Park Pier officials.

6. Oct 7, 2017Storm Surge/Tide, Baldwin Coastal$7.8 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   Hurricane Nate quickly moved north northwest out of the northwest Caribbean Sea and across the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall near Biloxi, MS just after midnight on October 8th as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum winds of 85 mph. Nate quickly weakened as it moved inland across inland southeast Mississippi and southwest Alabama and was downgraded to a tropical depression over central Alabama by 10am CDT on October 8th.||The most significant damage produced by Nate was a substantial storm surge, particularly in the Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay. The highest surge values were observed in Mobile County, AL where peak surge inundation was generally 4 to 6 feet based on official…

7. Sep 24, 2002Tropical Storm, Lower Baldwin$2.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   For the second time during the month the area was threatened by a tropical storm. Tropical Storm Isidore threatened the area Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We were put under a Tropical Storm Warning at 900 AM CST on September 24. The Tropical Storm Warning was dropped at 300 PM CST on September 26 as the remains of Isidore moved across eastern Mississippi. Isidore moved ashore over the Southeast Louisiana Coast between 200 and 300 AM CST on September 26. Although the center of Isidore did not move over our area, the strongest winds and heaviest rains were east of the center with most of the damage across Southwest Alabama and Northwest Florida.Some of the winds recorded across…

8. Jun 10, 2005Tropical Storm, Upper Baldwin$1.5 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   Tropical Storm Arlene moved across the area during the afternoon and evening of June 11. The area was put under a Tropical Storm Watch at 300 AM CST on June 10, then a Tropical Storm Warning and a Hurricane Watch at 900 AM CST on June 10. The area was then put under a Hurricane Warning at 900 PM CST on June 10. The Hurricane Warning was dropped to a Tropical Storm Warning at 300 PM CST on June 11. All Tropical Warnings were dropped at 600 PM CST on June 11 as the remains of Arlene moved inland across Southwest Alabama.Arlene made landfall near Perdido Key around 130 PM CST Saturday afternoon. Arlene tracked north northwest across Southwest Alabama along a similar track that Ivan…

9. Mar 8, 1998Flash Flood$1.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   A slow moving complex weather system moved through southwest Alabama on March 8, bringing with it copious amounts of rainfall. The Mobile WSR-88D estimated rainfall totals of six to ten inches across the area on March 8 with Brewton recording 9.54 inches. Some areas in north Baldwin county estimated up to fifteen inches of rain with Covington county estimating up to twelve inches of rain. The heavy rains began on the evening of March 7 and continued through the night before tapering off on the afternoon of March 8. The heaviest rainfall fell from midnight until around noon on March 8. The heavy rainfall caused widespread flooding across the area. The flooding began in Mobile…

10. Jan 2, 2017Thunderstorm Wind$950,000
    National Weather Service narrative

    A severe thunderstorm moved across Gulf Shores and|produced a corridor of significant wind damage from near the|intersection of Highway 59 and Highway 182 north and east to just |east of Highway 59 and south of Fort Morgan road (Highway 180). |All damage surveyed was blown from a southwest to northeast direction,|indicative of straight line wind damage. The corridor of greatest damage |occurred around 300 to 350 yards on either side of Highway 59. Numerous|trees were uprooted and had significant large branches broken off. A few |homes were damaged by the fallen trees along West 12th and 13th Avenues |and a few homes suffered shingle damage. The Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo |experienced…

1. Storm Events records before 1996 cover only tornadoes, thunderstorm wind and hail. Damage figures are as reported by the National Weather Service at the time, not adjusted for inflation.

NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, 1950 to 2026, issued October 26, 2026.

All-time high

105°F2 times, most recently Jul 12, 1930

All-time low

5°F2 times, most recently Jan 22, 1985

Warmest night

89°FOct 8, 1927

Coldest day

23°FDec 23, 1989

Wettest day

14.52 inJul 20, 1997

Snowiest day

7.5 inJan 22, 2025

Hottest year

2023mean 69.6°F

Coldest year

2014mean 64.8°F

Wettest year

197894.06 in

Driest year

195435.81 in

Station Fairhope 2 Ne (USC00012813), 23 ft elevation, 16.3 miles from the city centre. Daily records from 1917 to October 20, 2026; 98.9% of days in the last 30 years are complete. Records at a single station can differ from a city’s official threaded record, which may combine several stations.

NOAA NCEI Global Historical Climatology Network Daily.

Declarations for Baldwin County.

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries, retrieved October 30, 2026. Statewide declarations are not listed.

• Tornadoes NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather database, through 2025.
• Tropical cyclones NOAA National Hurricane Center HURDAT2 (Atlantic; Northeast and Central Pacific), through 2025.
• Wildfire USGS/USFS Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity, through 2026.
• Storm events NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, through 2026.
• Flood insurance OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3, refreshed August 4, 2026.
• Declarations OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Weather records NOAA NCEI Global Historical Climatology Network Daily, station USC00012813.
• River crests NOAA National Weather Service, National Water Prediction Service river gauges, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Drought NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county Palmer Drought Severity Index, through September 2026.
• Smoke NOAA NESDIS Hazard Mapping System smoke analysis, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Landslides USGS Landslide Inventories across the United States, version 3.0 (2025).
• Earthquakes USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), retrieved October 30, 2026.

Joins, thresholds and known limits are set out in the methodology. Found an error? Report it. Page built October 30, 2026.