Rock County, WI Tornado Risk & Storm Shelter Cost
Rock County's tornado history, by the numbers
Since 1955, NOAA has logged 36 tornado tracks crossing Rock County - one about every 2.1 years, which lands it in our Elevated band. Nationally, Rock County ranks at the 76th percentile for tornado frequency. Within Wisconsin alone, Rock County ranks 16 of 72 counties for tornado frequency.
Rock County's EF4-5 history
Rock County's record has no EF4-5 tornado - its 36 tracks split 26 weak and 10 significant. That does not rule one out in the future, only that none has been recorded since 1950.
What a storm shelter costs near Rock County
For a Rock County homeowner, budget $2,890-$13,280 for a shelter or safe room ($7,645 typical) - this pass found no Wisconsin-specific rebate on top of FEMA's underlying 75% national cost-share program.
The outage nobody plans for
A direct hit is not required for Rock County to lose power - outbreak-wide outages across Wisconsin regularly reach homes and businesses well outside the actual tracks. A battery bank covers that gap without a generator's fuel and venting needs.
Read this before you rely on it
This is a county-level figure, not a per-address probability. Rock County covers about 718 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. Rock County has about 165,461 residents.