Winona County, MN Tornado Risk & Storm Shelter Cost
How likely is a tornado in Winona County, MN?
Since 1965, NOAA has logged 19 tornado tracks crossing Winona County - one about every 4 years, which lands it in our Moderate band. Nationally, Winona County ranks at the 49th percentile for tornado frequency. Among 87 Minnesota counties in this dataset, Winona County ranks 64 for how often a tornado touches down.
Winona County's EF4-5 history
Winona County's record has no EF4-5 tornado - its 19 tracks split 17 weak and 2 significant. That does not rule one out in the future, only that none has been recorded since 1950.
What a storm shelter costs near Winona County
For a Winona County homeowner, budget $2,890-$13,280 for a shelter or safe room ($7,645 typical) - this pass found no Minnesota-specific rebate on top of FEMA's underlying 75% national cost-share program.
The outage nobody plans for
49,973 people live in Winona County, and a tornado outbreak's power loss usually reaches far more of Minnesota than the tracks themselves touch. A portable battery unit is the faster, no-fuel way to bridge that outage.
Read this before you rely on it
This is a county-level figure, not a per-address probability. Winona County covers about 626 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. Winona County has about 49,973 residents.