Fillmore County, MN: Tornado Risk and Shelter Cost
How likely is a tornado in Fillmore County, MN?
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has recorded 24 tornado tracks touching Fillmore County since 1965 - about one every 3.2 years on average. That puts it in our Moderate band nationally. Against the rest of the country, that is the 59th percentile for frequency. Among 87 Minnesota counties in this dataset, Fillmore County ranks 51 for how often a tornado touches down.
Has Fillmore County ever had a violent tornado?
Nothing violent in Fillmore County's file: 24 tracks total, topping out at significant (EF2-3) strength on 2 of them, zero at EF4-5.
Paying for it, if Fillmore County's history says you should
A storm shelter or in-residence safe room typically runs $2,890-$13,280 nationally, around $7,645 for a common single-family installation. No state-administered rebate program specific to Minnesota was confirmed for this site - FEMA's own Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants fund 75% of an approved safe room nationwide, but only some states currently run a homeowner-facing application on top of that.
The gap a shelter does not cover
Tornado outbreaks routinely knock out power across Minnesota for days, separately from any single house getting hit. A portable battery bank keeps a fridge, phone chargers and a radio running through that gap - cheaper and faster to set up than a generator.
County-level, not address-level
Treat this as a county-wide figure, not a prediction for one address. Fillmore County covers about 861 square miles, so a single touch here counts the same as a single touch in a county a fraction of that size. And records from before the 1990s, NOAA notes, undercount weaker tornadoes in areas with less storm-spotting coverage at the time. Fillmore County has about 21,502 residents.