7,639 flood insurance claims·$250.1M paid·14 federal flood & hurricane disasters
Share of the whole county outline, rivers and lakes included; parts FEMA hasn’t mapped count as zero.
From the National Weather Service, checked just now. Every active flood alert in the U.S. →
| River gauge | Now | Forecast |
|---|---|---|
| St. Johns River at Racy Point (in MHHW) | Near flood stage (1.0 ft) | — |
Is your address in the flood zone? Search it above for FEMA’s zone and base flood elevation. A new flood insurance policy usually takes 30 days to start (NFIP rule; exceptions include a policy bought when closing a mortgage), so one bought during a flood generally won’t cover it. Homeowners policies don’t cover flood.
Shaded areas are FEMA’s mapped flood hazard zones in and around St. Johns County, Florida. Zoomed out they are simplified; at street level the map switches to FEMA’s exact layer. Tap anywhere to check that spot, or search an address above.
St. Johns County experiences a flood risk profile dominated by general flooding and tropical storm activity, with 38 flood events and 28 tropical storm events recorded over the last 30 years, alongside coastal floods, flash floods, storm surges, and hurricanes. Recent impacts include localized heavy rainfall driven by sea breezes and troughs in August 2025, as well as significant tropical activity from Hurricane Helene and Tropical Storm Milton in September and October 2024.
National Flood Insurance Program claims data demonstrates that risk extends across multiple zones, with Zone A recording the highest volume at 6,084 claims with an average payout of $43,374 and an average recorded water depth of 6 inches. Zone X accounts for 848 claims with an average payout of $28,746 and an average recorded water depth of 8 inches. Zone V totals 322 claims with the highest average payout at $70,971 and an average recorded water depth of 3 inches, while Zone X_UNSHADED and Zone X_SHADED recorded 181 and 154 claims with average payouts of $41,459 and $21,940, and average water depths of 2 and 3 inches, respectively.
Homeowners in Zone A and Zone V should pay the closest attention to flood risk due to the concentration of high-payout and high-volume claims associated with coastal and high-risk flood zones.
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
5% of St. Johns County’s flood insurance claims were on properties rated outside FEMA’s high-risk zones.
6,741 NFIP claims with a recorded rated flood zone, 1978 to date. The zone is the one FEMA used to rate that policy, which may not match today’s map. Source: OpenFEMA NFIP claims.
In flood insurance claims here that reported a flood depth, the average was 6 inches.
Drawn to scale against an 80-inch door. Even a few inches soaks flooring, the bottom of the drywall and anything plugged in near the floor.
Average of the depths reported on claims (zero and implausible values left out); FEMA’s record doesn’t say exactly where each depth was measured. Source: OpenFEMA NFIP claims.
The worst year was 2016, with 3,456 claims and $146.7M paid, the year of Hurricane Matthew.
Bar height is scaled by square root so ordinary years stay visible next to the worst one. NFIP claims by year of loss. Source: OpenFEMA.
56 NOAA storm reports from St. Johns County describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Florida flood stories →
34 federal disaster declarations since 1968, 14 of them floods, coastal storms or hurricanes.
| Disaster | Began |
|---|---|
| Hurricane Milton | Oct 5, 2024 |
| Hurricane Debby | Aug 1, 2024 |
| Tropical Storm Debby | Aug 1, 2024 |
| Hurricane Idalia | Aug 27, 2023 |
| Tropical Storm Idalia | Aug 27, 2023 |
| Hurricane Nicole | Nov 7, 2022 |
| Tropical Storm Nicole | Nov 7, 2022 |
| Hurricane Ian | Sep 23, 2022 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
111 since 1996: 16 flash floods, 38 river or area floods and 27 coastal floods or surges.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flood | Aug 22, 2025 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Sep 26, 2024 | — |
| Flood | Sep 18, 2024 | — |
| Flash Flood | Oct 10, 2024 | — |
| Flood | Oct 10, 2024 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Oct 9, 2024 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Oct 9, 2024 | $11.0M |
| Tropical Storm | Aug 4, 2024 | — |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Flood · Aug 22, 2025. Weak southwest to west steering flow combined with high atmospheric moisture and surface forcing from a weak trough and sea breezes produced localized heavy rainfall in the afternoon and evening over a diurnally unstable airmass.
Tropical Storm · Sep 26, 2024. Hurricane Helene made landfall as a category 4 with peak winds of near 140 mph in the Florida Big |Bend just east of the Aucilla River Entrance in Taylor County, late Thursday evening September 26, |2024. Helene's main impact to southeast Georgia and northeast Florida was wind damage as it |tracked quickly north-northeast. The very powerful hurricane and the forward motion produced a |wide swath of wind damage ac…
Flood · Sep 18, 2024. A diffuse surface front shifted south across NE FL during the afternoon as a short wave trough traversed overhead. This forcing combined with diurnally driven sea breezes under WSW flow over a moist and unstable airmass triggered a few strong to severe storms.
Flash Flood · Oct 10, 2024. A tropical disturbance over the southwest Gulf of Mexico quickly developed into Tropical Storm |Milton on Saturday, October 5th. Milton then moved slowly east-southeastward, strengthening into a |hurricane the following day. On Monday, October 7th, the storm underwent rapid intensification, |reaching Category 5 strength as it neared the northwestern coast of Mexico's Yucat��n Peninsula. Late |on Monday and int…
National Weather Service narratives, lightly trimmed. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Every colour on the map above is a place on this drawing: where the ground sits relative to the flood FEMA plans for.
If a building in St. Johns County is in a high-risk zone (A or V) and its mortgage comes from a federally regulated or insured lender, or is federally backed, flood insurance is required.
Outside those zones it is optional, and often worth having: from 2014 to 2024 nearly one-third of NFIP claims came from outside the high-risk Special Flood Hazard Area. Since Risk Rating 2.0, NFIP premiums are set for each building, so the only reliable price is a quote: FloodSmart.gov or a local agent.