Cooper County

Every recorded tornado

1. Injuries and deaths are for the tornado’s whole path, which may extend beyond the county. Deaths recorded within Cooper County: 0.
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.

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

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.

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.

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 county boundary (or inside the county).
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.

Mapped landslides

Mapped by MO DNR (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. Jan 30, 2002Ice Storm, Cooper$1.0 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   A long-lived major ice and snow storm blasted much of northwest, northern and central Missouri from late Tuesday, January 29th, until Thursday, January 31st. Ice accumulations of over an inch were observed from the Kansas City metropolitan area, east and north through Moberly Missouri. At one point 409,504 total customers were without electrical power in the CWA, with some residents without power up to two weeks. For the Kansas City area, the ice storm was ranked as the worst ever. Further north across northern Missouri, heavy snow fell generally along and north of a line, from St. Joseph to Trenton to Kirksville. Snow accumulations ranged from 8 to 14 inches.

2. Apr 8, 1999Tornado$750,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   A tornado developed 4 miles south of Boonville and moved quickly northeast, damaging a church and downing several trees and power poles 4 miles south of Boonville. Three eighteen-wheelers were overturned.

3. Oct 22, 2022Wildfire, Cooper$200,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Around 330 pm CDT on October 22nd, a harvesting combine in a crop field started a wildland fire in the small community of Wooldridge, MO (population: 29) in far eastern Cooper County, about 2 miles west of the Missouri River and about 4 miles south of Interstate 70. ||Weather conditions on the afternoon of 10/22 were quite conducive for fire ignition and rapid fire spread. Relative humidity from the Boonville, MO AWOS (KVER) showed RH values around 25% around fire ignition time (with a temperature of 86 degrees!) with winds out of the SSE around 25 mph and gusting to 35+ mph. Furthermore, antecedent conditions also favored fire ignition and spread. At the time of the fire,…

4. Apr 2, 2025Tornado$100,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   A tornado with an estimated peak wind of 115 mph (EF-2) traveled for around 6.3 miles across portions of western Cooper County, Missouri, impacting the town of Pilot Grove and surrounding areas. The tornado damage path began just southwest of downtown Pilot Grove, where it caused some minor damage to an outbuilding at a farmstead. The tornado then traveled to the northeast, where it caused minor damage to the roofs of homes on W Bock Street and the Katy Manor on Prospect Street. It then caused damage to several structures along W Harris Street near the intersection of W 3rd Street. In this location, a manufactured home was thrown 100 feet off its cinder blocks and completely…

5. Aug 13, 2005Tornado$50,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   F0 gustnado along the leading edge of a line of thunderstorms produced damage to several homes in southwest Boonville. Also roofs torn off trailers, and numerous trees downed.

6. Apr 8, 1999Thunderstorm Wind$50,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Thunderstorm winds blew the roof off of a church.

7. Jun 25, 2000Thunderstorm Wind$30,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Thunderstorm winds gusted to near hurricane strength in Boonville, downing power lines and trees. A vehicle was damaged when a large tree fell on it, and several residents reported damage to their roofs.

8. Apr 10, 2001Tornado$25,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Tornado on the ground around Pilot Grove for 5 minutes, moving east. It produced minor roof damage to two homes. There were also downed trees and power lines. It was accompanied by baseball sized hail.

9. Jun 17, 2009Hail$10,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   A frontal boundary across the area, caused severe thunderstorms across the area, on June 17, 2009. There were numerous reports of large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding.

10. May 24, 2000Lightning$5,000
    National Weather Service narrative

    A house in Boonville was damaged by a lightning strike.

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

109°FJul 30, 1980

All-time low

−24°FJan 12, 1974

Warmest night

84°FJul 10, 1980

Coldest day

−8°F3 times, most recently Dec 23, 1989

Wettest day

5.95 inJul 3, 2016

Snowiest day

16.0 inFeb 2, 2011

Hottest year

2012mean 57.6°F

Coldest year

1996mean 51.6°F

Wettest year

200856.82 in

Driest year

198022.67 in

Snowiest season

31.1 in2018-19

Station New Franklin 1W (USC00236012), 641 ft elevation, 7.5 miles from the population centre. Daily records from 1956 to September 30, 2025; 88.4% 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.

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.

Neighbouring counties

• 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 USC00236012.
• 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.
• 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.