THE WEATHER BEAT · SEP 19
The wettest day on record for four Texas coast towns fell on this date in 1984
Port Isabel, Texas and three neighboring towns measured their wettest day on record, 12.0 inches of rain, on September 19, 1984.
Key points
- Port Isabel, Texas measured 12.0 inches of rain on September 19, 1984, its wettest day on record in a span running from 1896 to 2026.
- The same gauge is the nearest station of record for three neighboring towns at the southern tip of Texas: Laguna Vista, Laguna Heights and Del Mar Heights.
- The house archive holds the total itself, not a cause; no storm or system is named in the record, and none is claimed here.
A gauge at the foot of the Laguna Madre
Our house archive keeps a running tally of the hottest, coldest, wettest and snowiest day each station has ever measured. On the calendar date of September 19, the record for Port Isabel, Texas reads 12.0 inches of rain in a single day, on September 19, 1984, the most that gauge has recorded since its data begin in 1896, a span of 130 years running through 2026.
Port Isabel sits on the Laguna Madre, the shallow bay behind South Padre Island, at the far southern end of the Texas Gulf coast. The same gauge is the nearest station of record for three other towns nearby: Laguna Vista, about a mile off; Laguna Heights, roughly three miles off; and Del Mar Heights, about eight miles off. All four share this one day as their wettest on record.
The house archive records what the gauge measured and the date it happened. It does not name a storm, a front, or a cause, and none is offered here. Readers who want the meteorological story behind a specific date are better served by the National Weather Service's own post-event write-ups, where they exist; this desk did not find one in hand tonight that it could quote by name for this date and station, so the total stands on its own.
The record, for the nerds
| town | station | value | date | record span |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Port Isabel, TX | Port Isabel, USC00417179 | 12.0 in | September 19, 1984 | 1896 to 2026 |
| Laguna Vista, TX | (same gauge, 1.0 mi) | 12.0 in | September 19, 1984 | 1896 to 2026 |
| Laguna Heights, TX | (same gauge, 3.1 mi) | 12.0 in | September 19, 1984 | 1896 to 2026 |
| Del Mar Heights, TX | (same gauge, 7.7 mi) | 12.0 in | September 19, 1984 | 1896 to 2026 |
Sources: the house NOAA station archive, read by beat-history.py on 2026-09-19. Every figure above is a line the archive tool printed.
This is a historical summary, not emergency information. For live warnings see weather.gov and your local officials.
The rock's live forecast for the places in this story: Port Isabel TX | Laguna Vista TX | Laguna Heights TX | Del Mar Heights TX
The rock's live forecast for the places in this story
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