1,730 flood insurance claims·$35.0M paid·5 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 Cuyahoga 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 risk profile in Cuyahoga County, accounting for 97 of the 128 recorded flood events over the last 30 years, alongside 30 standard flood events and 1 lakeshore flood event.
Recent weather patterns illustrate this hazard, including a flash flood event driven by widespread showers and embedded thunderstorms on April 25, 2025, and another driven by a lake breeze and pulse thunderstorms on July 25, 2023. Additional flash flooding occurred on August 23, 2023, amid an anomalously warm and moist air mass with tropical-like precipitable water values exceeding two inches.
NFIP claims data shows that properties in Zone A have experienced the highest impact with 897 claims, averaging $34,779 per payout and an average recorded water depth of 8 inches. Zone X properties also face significant risk, with 302 claims averaging $26,670 and an average water depth of 8 inches, while Zone X shaded properties recorded 74 claims averaging $33,216 with an average water depth of 5 inches. Homeowners in these designated zones, as well as those in unshaded Zone X and unknown zones where hundreds of additional claims have been filed, should pay the closest attention to local flood risks.
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
26% of Cuyahoga County’s flood insurance claims were on properties rated outside FEMA’s high-risk zones.
1,216 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 2011, with 209 claims and $7.4M paid.
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.
83 NOAA storm reports from Cuyahoga County describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Ohio flood stories →
19 federal disaster declarations since 1965, 5 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 |
| Severe Storms, Tornadoes, Straight Line Winds, And Flooding | Jun 21, 2006 |
| Hurricane Katrina Evacuation | Aug 29, 2005 |
| Severe Storms And Flooding | Aug 27, 2004 |
| Severe Storms And Flooding | May 18, 2004 |
| Power Outage | Aug 14, 2003 |
| Tornadoes, Flooding, Severe Storms, And High Winds | Jul 21, 2003 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
128 since 1996: 97 flash floods, 30 river or area floods and 1 coastal floods or surges.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | Apr 25, 2025 | — |
| Flash Flood | Jul 25, 2023 | $75,000 |
| Flash Flood | Aug 23, 2023 | — |
| Flash Flood | Aug 23, 2023 | $750,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jul 20, 2023 | $100,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jul 20, 2023 | $350,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jul 20, 2023 | $50,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jul 20, 2023 | $3.5M |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Flash Flood · Apr 25, 2025. Broad, quasi-zonal mid/upper level flow was present over the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley on April 25th, 2025, with surface low pressure slowly moving east across the southern Great Lakes. Northern Ohio was firmly entrenched in the warm sector of this system with a warm front just north of Lake Erie. Widespread rain showers with embedded thunderstorms developed across Northern Ohio during the afternoon hours as sur…
Flash Flood · Jul 25, 2023. A large ridge of high pressure was centered over the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley on July 25th, 2023. Convection developed along a lake breeze from Elyria, OH northeast to Erie, PA, just south of the I-90 corridor, as surface based CAPE values built to 2000-3000 j/kg by early afternoon. Little to no deep layer bulk shear promoted a pulse thunderstorm environment, with isolated thunderstorms building and collapsing…
Flash Flood · Aug 23, 2023. An anomalously-warm and moist air mass was in place across much of the Central Plains and Midwest, resulting in strong to perhaps extreme instability in addition to tropical-like precipitable water values exceeding 2.0 inches. The Lower Great Lakes region, specifically northern Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania found itself on the eastern edge of this heat dome. Strong northwest flow aloft persisted along the periph…
Flash Flood · Jul 20, 2023. A surface low moved generally eastward from east-central Lower MI to the southeastern shore of Lake Huron during the evening of the 20th. Simultaneously, the low's warm front swept northeastward across southern ON and western NY toward the northern shore of Lake Ontario as the low's trailing cold front moved generally eastward across southeastern Lower MI and far-northeastern IN to central Lake Erie and northeaste…
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 Cuyahoga 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.