Slope County, ND: Tornado Risk and Shelter Cost
Slope County, ND: what NOAA's tornado record says
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has recorded 11 tornado tracks touching Slope County since 1960 - about one every 6.9 years on average. That puts it in our Low band nationally. Against the rest of the country, that is the 30th percentile for frequency. Within North Dakota alone, Slope County ranks 51 of 53 counties for tornado frequency.
Has Slope County ever had a violent tornado?
Nothing violent in Slope County's file: 11 tracks total, topping out at significant (EF2-3) strength on 0 of them, zero at EF4-5.
Paying for it, if Slope 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 North Dakota 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
Power loss after a tornado outbreak in North Dakota often reaches homes the storm itself never touched. A battery-backup unit covers the outage without the fuel and venting a generator needs.
County-level, not address-level
Treat this as a county-wide figure, not a prediction for one address. Slope County covers about 1,215 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. Slope County has about 660 residents.