Tornado Risk in Hand County, SD
Hand County, SD: what NOAA's tornado record says
45 tornado tracks have crossed Hand County since 1959 by NOAA's count, roughly one every 1.7 years - the High band on this site's scale. That is the 84th percentile nationally for tornado frequency. South Dakota has 66 counties in this dataset; Hand County ranks 12 of them by frequency.
The number that matters more than frequency
No violent (EF4-5) tornado has been recorded in Hand County in NOAA's 76-year database. Of its 45 recorded tracks, 35 were weak (EF0-1) and 10 significant (EF2-3).
Shelter and safe-room economics
South Dakota does not currently have a confirmed state rebate layered on top of FEMA's 75% Hazard Mitigation cost-share, so a Hand County homeowner should expect the full national range: $2,890-$13,280, $7,645 typical.
Power after the storm, not just shelter during it
The storm that misses Hand County outright can still take its power out - outbreak-scale outages across South Dakota are common well beyond the tracked path. A battery-backup unit handles that without a generator's setup or fuel.
What Hand County's figure does not tell you
Hand County's figure is county-wide, not address-specific. Hand County covers about 1,437 square miles, so a single touch here counts the same as a single touch in a county a fraction of that size. NOAA also documents that older records undercount weaker tornadoes from before Doppler radar became standard. Hand County has about 3,097 residents.