Cattaraugus County, NY Tornado Risk & Storm Shelter Cost
How likely is a tornado in Cattaraugus County, NY?
Since 1961, NOAA has logged 19 tornado tracks crossing Cattaraugus County - one about every 4 years, which lands it in our Moderate band. Nationally, Cattaraugus County ranks at the 49th percentile for tornado frequency. Among 62 New York counties in this dataset, Cattaraugus County ranks 5 for how often a tornado touches down.
Cattaraugus County's EF4-5 history
Cattaraugus County's record has no EF4-5 tornado - its 19 tracks split 13 weak and 6 significant. That does not rule one out in the future, only that none has been recorded since 1950.
What a storm shelter costs near Cattaraugus County
For a Cattaraugus County homeowner, budget $2,890-$13,280 for a shelter or safe room ($7,645 typical) - this pass found no New York-specific rebate on top of FEMA's underlying 75% national cost-share program.
The outage nobody plans for
Power loss after a tornado outbreak in New York often reaches homes the storm itself never touched. A battery-backup unit covers the outage without the fuel and venting a generator needs.
Read this before you rely on it
This is a county-level figure, not a per-address probability. Cattaraugus County covers about 1,308 square miles, so a single touch here counts the same as a single touch in a county a fraction of that size. Pre-radar-era records (before the 1990s) are also documented by NOAA as undercounting weaker tornadoes in sparsely-instrumented areas. Cattaraugus County has about 75,475 residents.