146 flood insurance claims·$2.0M paid·3 federal flood & hurricane disasters
Share of the whole county outline, rivers and lakes included; parts FEMA hasn’t mapped count as zero.
Shaded areas are FEMA’s mapped flood hazard zones in and around Ashtabula County, Ohio. 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.
Flash flooding from summer thunderstorms dominates the flood profile of Ashtabula County. Over a 30-year period, the NOAA Storm Events Database recorded 41 flash flood events, alongside 9 standard floods, 1 lakeshore flood, and 1 coastal flood. Recent events include flash flooding triggered by slow-moving and back-building storms along a lake breeze front in June 2025, and multicell thunderstorms and supercells preceding a cold front in June 2024.
National Flood Insurance Program records show claims spanning multiple zones. Zone A accounts for 61 claims with an average payout of $14,442 and an average recorded water depth of 9 inches. Zone X unshaded properties filed 30 claims with an average payout of $30,118 and an average recorded water depth of 6 inches. Zone X properties recorded 22 claims averaging $32,628 with an average water depth of 10 inches, while Zone X shaded areas logged 7 claims averaging $9,286 with an average water depth of 5 inches. Properties with unknown zones accounted for 26 claims averaging $3,177 with an average depth of 1 inch.
Homeowners, real estate agents, and journalists should pay the most attention to properties in Zone A, which received the highest volume of claims, as well as properties in Zone X variants where average payouts reached over $30,000.
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
38% of Ashtabula County’s flood insurance claims were on properties rated outside FEMA’s high-risk zones.
98 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 7 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 2006, with 19 claims and $879,467 paid, the year of Severe Storms, Straight Line Winds, and Flooding.
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.
18 NOAA storm reports from Ashtabula County describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Ohio flood stories →
15 federal disaster declarations since 1969, 3 of them floods, coastal storms or hurricanes.
| Disaster | Began |
|---|---|
| Severe Storms And Flooding Due To The Remnants Of Hurricane Sandy | Oct 29, 2012 |
| Severe Storms | Jun 29, 2012 |
| Record Snow And Near Record Snow | Mar 7, 2008 |
| Severe Storms, Straight Line Winds, And Flooding | Jul 27, 2006 |
| Hurricane Katrina Evacuation | Aug 29, 2005 |
| Severe Storms And Flooding | Aug 27, 2004 |
| Power Outage | Aug 14, 2003 |
| Severe Storms & Tornadoes | May 31, 1985 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
52 since 1996: 41 flash floods, 9 river or area floods and 2 coastal floods or surges.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | Jun 18, 2025 | $100,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jun 18, 2025 | — |
| Flash Flood | Jun 26, 2024 | $250,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jun 26, 2024 | $50,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jul 29, 2021 | $100,000 |
| Flood | Mar 1, 2020 | $5.0M |
| Flood | Feb 1, 2020 | $10.0M |
| Coastal Flood | Apr 14, 2019 | $85,000 |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Flash Flood · Jun 18, 2025. A slow-moving cold front was draped west to east across the southern Great Lakes during the day of June 18th, 2025, with low pressure near Chicago drifting east toward southern Ontario. An upper-level shortwave trough moving eastward across the southern Great Lakes during the afternoon brought scattered showers and thunderstorms to portions of northern Ohio, with slow-moving and back-building storms along a lake b…
Flash Flood · Jun 26, 2024. A cold front drifted southeastward from central Lake Huron, southern Lower MI, and northwestern IN to southern ON, southeastern Lower MI, far-northwestern OH, and northern IN during the late morning through early evening of the 26th. The front was preceded by a warm and humid sector comprised of weak to moderate MUCAPE and DCAPE, respectively, and moderate to strong effective bulk shear in northern OH. Scattered t…
Flash Flood · Jul 29, 2021. A surface low moved from northern Lake Huron to near Toronto during the late morning through early afternoon of the 29th. Simultaneously, the trailing cold front swept southeast from southern Lower MI to northwestern OH and central Lake Erie. Ahead of the cold front, clusters of multicell thunderstorms impacted northeast OH and produced damaging wind gusts in Ashtabula County. These storms encountered moderate ins…
Flood · Mar 1, 2020. New record high monthly mean water levels were set on Lakes Michigan-Huron, St. Clair, and Erie in March 2020. All three lakes surpassed their previous records set in 1986. The individual lakes basins experienced precipitation that was near to above average with the Lake Erie basin receiving the most precipitation, which was 121% of average. Water supplies for all of the lakes were above average in March. The high…
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 Ashtabula 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.