Cocoa Beach hurricanes: 1979 David, 2004 Frances and Jeanne, and the storms since

Since 1950 only one hurricane eye has run up the coast past Cocoa Beach: David, on the night of September 3, 1979. Every other storm that has done real damage here came ashore somewhere else, usually 45 to 80 miles south at Vero Beach or Hutchinson Island, or passed offshore like Matthew in 2016. The beach took the punishment anyway, because on a barrier island a hurricane’s surge and waves reach you whether or not the center does.

Here is the record storm by storm, from the National Hurricane Center’s reports and its best-track data.

Before David

The storms of the 1960s kept their distance. On the best track, Tropical Storm Cleo passed a few miles inland of Melbourne and Cocoa late on August 27, 1964, with 45-knot winds, and Hurricane Dora came ashore near St. Augustine on September 10, 1964, more than 100 miles to the north. Neither center crossed the barrier island.

1979, Hurricane David

David came ashore just north of Palm Beach at midday on September 3, 1979, as a Category 2 and ran its eye north up the coast, over the Brevard barrier strip, to the Cape Canaveral area around midnight. The hurricane center’s best track holds it at 85 knots, about 100 mph, the whole way. Patrick Air Force Base, just south of town, logged a gust of 90 mph. Tides ran 3 to 5 feet above normal near the eye’s path, and the federal Storm Data log singles out Brevard and southern Volusia for severe beach erosion. Nobody in Florida died as a direct result.

David showed what a hurricane running up this coast does to a barrier island: the beach goes first. The full account, with every Brevard station reading, is on our sister site’s Hurricane David page at Old Titusville.

1995, Hurricane Erin

Erin came ashore near Vero Beach around 0600 UTC on August 2, 1995, as a Category 1 with 75-knot winds, the figure based on a Florida Institute of Technology anemometer at Sebastian Inlet that recorded 74.6 knots. The Melbourne weather office estimated a 2 to 4 foot storm tide. The hurricane center’s report says thousands of homes and businesses were damaged in Brevard and that beach erosion along the central Florida coast hit mainly boardwalks, beach accessways and the dune system. No one died on land in Florida, but the gambling and cruise ship Club Royale sank about 90 miles east of Cape Canaveral, and three crew members were presumed dead.

1999, Hurricane Floyd

Floyd never came close to landfall in Florida. Its eye passed about 95 nautical miles east of Cape Canaveral around 0900 UTC on September 15, 1999. It mattered for a different reason. The hurricane center’s report says more than 2 million people evacuated in the United States for Floyd, “probably the largest evacuation in U.S. history” at the time.

2004, Frances and Jeanne

Hurricane Frances came ashore on the southern end of Hutchinson Island, about 75 miles south of Cocoa Beach, at about 12:30 a.m. EDT on September 5, 2004, as a Category 2. It crawled west-northwest across the peninsula. The Melbourne weather office estimated a storm surge of about 6 feet around Cocoa Beach, according to the hurricane center’s report.

Hurricane Jeanne hit the same spot around midnight on September 25 to 26 as a Category 3, three weeks later. Hurricane-force sustained winds covered the coast from near Cape Canaveral south to near Stuart, and the tide gauge at Trident Pier in Port Canaveral, a few miles north of town, measured a 3.8-foot surge. The National Weather Service office in Melbourne recorded the strongest sustained wind measured anywhere in the storm, 79 knots.

Both landfalls, with every Brevard reading from the two reports, are on Old Palm Bay’s 2004 hurricanes page.

2016, Hurricane Matthew

On the best-track record Matthew is the closest a major hurricane has come to Cocoa Beach, and it never made landfall in Florida. It weakened to a Category 3 about 35 nautical miles east of Vero Beach early on October 7, 2016, and stayed about 30 nautical miles offshore as it went north. The western edge of its eyewall clipped the Kennedy Space Center, where sensors recorded gusts of 91 to 93 knots.

Cocoa Beach itself sat just outside the worst of it. The hurricane center’s observation table lists a WeatherFlow station at the Cocoa Beach Pier with a sustained wind of 52 knots and a gust of 67 knots at 0845 UTC on October 7, and one at the Cocoa Beach Club with 43 knots, gusting to 56. The report calls Brevard the part of Florida closest to Matthew’s center: 11 homes destroyed, 140 with major damage and 549 with minor damage countywide, about $25 million in beach damage, and dunes undermined under beachfront buildings from Satellite Beach to Melbourne Beach.

2017, Hurricane Irma

Irma hit the Keys as a Category 4 and came up through the middle of the state, its center about 100 miles west of the beach at closest approach. Its wind field still reached across. The Cocoa Beach Club station recorded a sustained 47 knots with a gust to 72 knots on the evening of September 10, and the hurricane center counted more than 7,000 damaged homes in Brevard.

2022, Ian and Nicole

Ian made landfall on Florida’s Gulf coast as a Category 4 on September 28, 2022, crossed the state, and came out over the Atlantic near Cape Canaveral the next morning as a tropical storm with 60-knot winds. Water along the Brevard coast reached 2 to 4 feet above ground level.

Nicole came ashore at Vero Beach, about 45 miles south of Cocoa Beach, at 0745 UTC on November 10, 2022, as a minimal Category 1. The Cocoa Beach station recorded only a sustained 29 knots, gusting to 51, and the hurricane center concluded that Nicole’s hurricane-force winds stayed over the water. The water was the damage: the Trident Pier gauge measured 5.83 feet above normal tide, on beaches Ian had already eroded six weeks earlier.

2024, Hurricane Milton

Milton made landfall on Siesta Key on the Gulf coast as a Category 3 on the evening of October 9, 2024, and its center came out into the Atlantic near Cape Canaveral by 0800 UTC on October 10. The Cocoa Beach station recorded a sustained 37 knots and a gust to 70 knots that morning.

What the record shows

Cocoa Beach’s direct hit came from a hurricane moving north along the coast, David. Most of its other damage came from storms that landed well south, Erin, Frances, Jeanne and Nicole, or stayed offshore, Matthew, with the town on the side of the storm that pushes water onto the beach. Beach renourishment has its own page.

Further Reading

• Florida’s Hurricane History by Jay Barnes
• Florida: A Short History by Michael Gannon