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Sources and Methods for Fort Lauderdale Data

The source behind every Fort Lauderdale fact on Lauderdale Flood Line, the method for each number we calculated, and the statements our data providers ask us to print.

Updated

Fort Lauderdale facts

Florida law

Rules the estimator uses

National references

Data services

How the calculated numbers are worked out

  • Live weather: the newest observation at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport (KFLL), the National Weather Service forecast for Fort Lauderdale City Hall, and alerts for Coastal Broward County and Broward County (FLZ172,FLC011). Readings and alerts refresh about every 15 minutes, the forecast hourly.
  • Rain against normal: ACIS daily totals for the Fort Lauderdale Area record (now Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport), added up for yesterday, the past 7 and 30 days and the month to date, next to the same station's 1991-2020 NCEI daily normals. Traces count as zero.
  • Flooding history: every day in the record (November 1, 1912 to November 11, 2026) with rain at or above the 99th percentile of all single-day readings (2.39 in.), ranked so that 1 is the wettest. 1,022 days have no single-day value (missing, or part of a multi-day accumulated reading) and are left out of the ranks. Monthly and yearly totals include accumulated readings and skip months missing more than 3 days or years missing more than 10.
  • Flood claims by ZIP: every NFIP claim whose reported ZIP is one of Fort Lauderdale's 10 residential ZIP codes. Total paid adds building and contents payments. Counts under 5 appear as "fewer than 5" with no dollar total. Home age: Census median year built (B25035) and the share of housing units built before 1980 (B25034), by ZIP Code Tabulation Area; the city-wide share is weighted by housing units.
  • Before publishing, numbers were checked by hand against a separate query to each source: the claim count for ZIP 33306 (81), the rain on April 12, 2023 (22.50 in.) and the September 2026 total (22.34 in.).

Data queries (pulled November 12, 2026)

  • ACIS StnData, full daily record: https://data.rcc-acis.org/StnData
  • ACIS StnData, 1991-2020 monthly precipitation normals: https://data.rcc-acis.org/StnData
  • OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3, one query per ZIP: https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v3/NfipClaims?$filter=reportedZipCode eq '<ZIP>'&$select=reportedZipCode,yearOfLoss,dateOfLoss,amountPaidOnBuildingClaim,amountPaidOnContentsClaim,occupancyType&$top=10000
  • Census ACS 5-year 2020-2024 summary file, tables B25034 and B25035 (ZCTA rows): https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/summary_file/2024/table-based-SF/data/5YRData/acsdt5y2024-b25034.dat and https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/summary_file/2024/table-based-SF/data/5YRData/acsdt5y2024-b25035.dat

Statements from our data providers

  • Live readings, forecasts and alerts on this site: National Weather Service (weather.gov).
  • Daily station history and 1991-2020 normals: the Applied Climate Information System (ACIS), run by the NOAA Regional Climate Centers.
  • 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).
  • FEMA's note on the NFIP claims data: "This dataset is not intended to be an official federal report, and should not be considered an official federal report."

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