Shelton

Every recorded tornado

1. Injuries and deaths are for the tornado’s whole path, which may extend beyond this area.
2. Weak tornadoes were under-recorded before Doppler radar coverage became national in the early 1990s, so earlier decades read low. Ratings use the Fujita scale before February 2007 and the Enhanced Fujita scale after.

Storm Prediction Center severe weather database, 1950 to 2025.

Every large fire

1. Large fires mapped by the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity program since 1984: 1,000 acres or more in the West, 500 or more in the East. Prescribed burns are excluded. Acres here are the part of each perimeter inside this place.

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service), 1984 to 2026.

Smoke overhead

1. A smoke day is a date on which a smoke plume traced by NOAA Hazard Mapping System analysts from satellite imagery covered this place's point (the county's population centre or the city centre). Counts here are of medium or heavy smoke. Since 2018 analysts have often drawn light smoke as one area over most of the continent, so light-smoke counts are not comparable from year to year. The plumes show smoke anywhere in the air above, not air quality at the ground, and smoke hidden by cloud is missed.

NOAA Hazard Mapping System smoke analysis, 2011 to 2026, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Flood insurance figures are for Mason County, the county that contains Shelton.

Claims by ZIP code

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3, refreshed August 4, 2026. NOAA Storm Events through 2026.

River crests

River gauges in Mason County, the county that contains Shelton.

River gauges

1. Crests are the highest and the recent crests the National Weather Service lists for each river gauge in the county that has a flood stage, not every flood. Flood categories use each gauge's current flood stages; crests from before levees, dams or channel changes may not be comparable. Crests measured on an old datum are left out of the rankings.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service gauge records, retrieved October 30, 2026.

The drought index is for Mason County, the county that contains Shelton.

1. The Palmer Drought Severity Index is computed by NOAA each month from the county's average temperature and precipitation, relative to the county's own climate. Zero is normal; -3 or lower is severe drought and -4 or lower extreme drought. It describes the long-term balance of moisture, not water supply or crop losses.

NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county Palmer Drought Severity Index, 1895 to September 2026, issued October 6, 2026.

Every earthquake of magnitude 4 or more within 50 miles

1. Earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more in the USGS Comprehensive Catalog since 1900. Within 50 miles means the epicentre lies within 50 miles of the city centre.
2. Small earthquakes were under-recorded before the modern seismic networks of the 1970s and are still missed in remote areas, so early decades read low. Magnitudes are as the catalogue reports them and mix scales (moment, local and body-wave).

USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog, 1900 to present, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Tsunamis

Tsunami records for Mason County.

1. Places where NOAA's Global Historical Tsunami Database records a tsunami's water arriving, with the greatest height it reached above sea level at the time. Only tsunamis NOAA rates probable or definite are counted. Heights from eyewitness accounts and tide gauges are mixed, and older events are less completely recorded.

NOAA NCEI/WDS Global Historical Tsunami Database, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Volcanoes within 100 miles

1. U.S. volcanoes within 100 miles, from the USGS Volcano Hazards Program. The threat category is the USGS 2018 National Volcanic Threat Assessment, which ranks volcanoes by how hazardous their past eruptions were and how many people and how much infrastructure lie near them. It is not a forecast of eruption.

USGS Volcano Hazards Program, retrieved October 30, 2026.

Mapped landslides

Landslides mapped in Mason County.

Mapped by WA WGS (5,584), NASA (15), West Coast Slow Moving (Yuankun and others, 2021) (2), USGS Conterminous (1).

1. Landslides mapped in the USGS compilation of landslide inventories across the United States (version 3.0, 2025), rated probable or better. The compilation joins inventories made by federal and state agencies for different purposes and areas, so the number mapped in a county reflects how closely it has been surveyed as much as how often its slopes fail. An area with few records may simply not have been mapped. Deaths are as recorded in the inventories; a slide listed in two inventories is counted once.

USGS Landslide Inventories across the United States, version 3.0, retrieved October 27, 2026.

More event types since 1996

Costliest events since 1996

1. Mar 1, 1999Heavy Rain$10.2 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   The heavy rain, which in turn caused flooding and mudslides, over the winter season has caused 18.5 million damage to Washington State roads. The two hardest hit counties were Mason with 10.2 and King with 5.5 million in damage.

2. Mar 25, 1999Heavy Rain$5.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   A mudslide 12 feet deep damaged a powerhouse switch yard at the Lake Cushman dam. The area received nearly 10 feet of rain since September 1998.

3. Dec 3, 2007High Wind, Olympics$2.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   Roads were either washed out or covered by fallen trees.

4. Jan 7, 2009Flood$900,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   There was flooding along the Skokomish River. Several homes in Shelton flooded, most from local creeks. Several roads in the area were also flooded, including SR 106 and 108.

5. Dec 12, 2010Flood$700,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   All of highway 106 in Mason county was closed due to flooding and mudslides. A foot bridge in the Tahuya State Forest was closed after floods washed out the concrete entry. Several homes were reported flooded in Mason county.

6. Jan 5, 2006Heavy Rain$700,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   The Governor declared a state of emergency after rain, at times heavy, over a period of about 10 days, caused over 7 million in damage, mainly to transportation infrastructure throughout western Washington. Mudslides closed parts of I-5 near the Pierce-Thurston county line, part of Highway 20 about a half mile east of Concrete, Highway 107 near Raymond, and Highway 166 near Port Orchard - where 3 cars crashed in the mud. In Bremerton, they totaled 16.2 inches of rainfall in 3 weeks, an amount which normally falls in 2 months. Mudslides halted Amtrak passenger train service between Everett and Olympia. In King County, there were 19 road closures from water over the roadway. Many…

7. Oct 20, 2003Heavy Rain$300,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   An all time daily record rainfall total was set at Seatac Airport with 5.02 inches. Other daily records were set at Shelton with 7.20", Hoquaim with 5.39" and Olympia with 4.12". Almost all reporting stations had at least 2 inches of rain in the 24 hour period from midnight to midnight. Two sinkholes, one in Clallam and one in Mason county, damaged roads and cut off access to homes. In all, nearly 50 homes suffered damage from minor flooding especially in basements and garages. Traffic snarls were common as many roads throughout the region were temporarily closed. The national parks and forests suffered fairly extensive damage to several bridges and many trails or the roads that…

8. Jan 7, 2002Flood, Olympics$200,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Heavy rain caused widespread flooding in western Washington. The Cowlitz, Chehalis, Satsop, Elwha, Dungeness, Skokomish, Puyallup, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Skagit, and Nooksack Rivers flooded. The Deschutes and the Tolt crested just below flood stage. The most serious flooding occurred on the Elwha, Dungeness, and Skagit Rivers. The crest on the Dungeness was probably a new record (pending certification by USGS), and was around a 25-year recurrence interval flood. Crests on most other rivers were between 2- and 10-year floods. Several roads in the region were closed and a few homes were damaged. One road in the Bremerton area was completely washed out and…

9. Oct 18, 2019Tornado$150,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Between approximately 6:02 - 6:07 PM on the evening of October 18, a tornado touched down near Shelton in Mason County, Washington and traveled approximately 0.68 miles before moving over the water of Pickering Passage and dissipating as a waterspout. The first video evidence and reports from area fire officials prompted the NWS to send a damage survey team to the area during the afternoon of October 19, 2019. Preliminary evaluation of the damage by the team concluded that the tornado reached an EF-1 rating. The damage path was up to 90 yards in width and the tornado was estimated to be on the ground for approximately 5 minutes.||Fortunately, no injuries were reported with this…

10. Jul 5, 1997Lightning$70,000
    National Weather Service narrative

    Lightning started a fire which destroyed a garage.

1. Storm Events records before 1996 cover only tornadoes, thunderstorm wind and hail. Damage figures are as reported by the National Weather Service at the time, not adjusted for inflation.

NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, 1950 to 2026, issued October 26, 2026.

All-time high

110°FJun 28, 2021

All-time low

−8°FJan 1, 1979

Warmest night

69°FJul 22, 2006

Coldest day

18°FJan 31, 1950

Wettest day

4.82 inJan 7, 2009

Snowiest day

14.2 inJan 24, 1972

Hottest year

1958mean 53.2°F

Coldest year

1955mean 47.7°F

Wettest year

195066.71 in

Driest year

194426.50 in

Station Olympia Airport (USW00024227), 200 ft elevation, 20.0 miles from the city centre. Daily records from 1941 to October 27, 2026; 99.8% of days in the last 30 years are complete. Records at a single station can differ from a city’s official threaded record, which may combine several stations.

NOAA NCEI Global Historical Climatology Network Daily.

Declarations for Mason County.

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries, retrieved October 30, 2026. Statewide declarations are not listed.

• Tornadoes NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather database, through 2025.
• Tropical cyclones NOAA National Hurricane Center HURDAT2 (Atlantic; Northeast and Central Pacific), through 2025.
• Wildfire USGS/USFS Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity, through 2026.
• Storm events NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, through 2026.
• Flood insurance OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3, refreshed August 4, 2026.
• Declarations OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Weather records NOAA NCEI Global Historical Climatology Network Daily, station USW00024227.
• River crests NOAA National Weather Service, National Water Prediction Service river gauges, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Drought NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county Palmer Drought Severity Index, through September 2026.
• Smoke NOAA NESDIS Hazard Mapping System smoke analysis, retrieved October 30, 2026.
• Tsunamis NOAA NCEI/WDS Global Historical Tsunami Database.
• Volcanoes USGS Volcano Hazards Program, U.S. volcanoes and 2018 threat assessment.
• Landslides USGS Landslide Inventories across the United States, version 3.0 (2025).
• Earthquakes USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), retrieved October 30, 2026.

Joins, thresholds and known limits are set out in the methodology. Found an error? Report it. Page built October 30, 2026.