Florence County

Every recorded tornado

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

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.

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.

More event types since 1996

Costliest events since 1996

1. Jul 15, 1999Flash Flood$1.6 million
   National Weather Service narrative

   Rainfall of 5 to 8 inches in just a few hours caused significant flash flooding across Florence county and extreme northern Forest county. An estimated 50 to 75 miles of roads required repairs, including U.S. Highways 2 and 141 and state highways 70 and 101. A total of 49 homes and 2 businesses suffered some water damage. The damage was mainly confined to basements with minimal first floor inundation.

2. Jul 18, 2013Lightning$162,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Lightning stuck a gas line, causing a fire that destroyed the adjacent house.

3. Apr 18, 2004Thunderstorm Wind$120,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   An intense area of low pressure moved toward Wisconsin from the plains as a warm front lifted north across the state. Severe thunderstorms developed in north-central Wisconsin in the vicinity of the front. These storms produced hail as large as golf balls in Vilas county at Conover and near Sayner. Wind gusts estimated at 75 mph caused considerable damage in Eagle River (Vilas co.) where part of the roof was torn off a high school gymnasium, a wall of a convenience store was damaged and a tree toppled onto a church, puncturing a hole in the roof. A small building was destroyed at a marina 2 miles east of Eagle River. Trees and power lines were downed across much of Vilas county…

4. Jul 30, 1999Thunderstorm Wind$102,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   A mesoscale convective system moved across north-central, central and northeast Wisconsin during the evening of July 30, 1999. Thunderstorm wind gusts over 70 mph (and possibly as high as 100 mph) produced significant damage across the far north-central part of the state. The hardest hit areas were Oneida county and Vilas county, but most of the NWS Green Bay forecast area was affected.In Vilas county, an estimated 100,000 trees were downed by the storm and two people were killed by falling trees in Oneida county. The storm left 50,000 people without electrical service, damaged 150 to 200 homes and blocked all major highways and secondary roads in the northern one-third of Oneida…

5. Sep 30, 2002Tornado$50,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Severe thunderstorms developed in unstable air in the vicinity of an east to west warm front that stretched across northern Wisconsin. These storms produced large hail, wind damage and two tornadoes. Hail to golf ball size covered the ground in the Minocqua area (Oneida co.) and golf ball to tennis ball size hail fell from Arbor Vitae (Vilas co.) to St. Germain (Vilas co.). The most significant wind damage was in southern Oneida county. In the Woodboro area (Oneida co.) a tree that was downed by high winds smashed a pickup truck.A tornado touched down in southeast Florence county. It destroyed a pole barn, a garage that was under construction and 6 to 10 outbuildings in its path.…

6. Apr 10, 2011Tornado$15,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   The tornado that formed near Argonne (Forest County) entered southwest Florence County at 7:46 pm CDT (1846 CST). Several large tree branches were broken (DI 28, DOD 2) before the tornado dissipated at 7:51 pm CDT (1851 CST). The average path width of the tornado in Florence County was 75 yards.

7. Aug 8, 2000Thunderstorm Wind$15,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Widely scattered supercell thunderstorms produced large hail as they moved across central and east central Wisconsin. The largest hail knocked out windows and windshields and caused crop damage in Marathon county. A separate cluster of storms produced wind damage near the Wisconsin/Michigan border. Three cabins were damaged by fallen trees near Keyes Lake (Florence county) where 20 to 30 large trees were downed by strong winds.

8. Aug 7, 1996Thunderstorm Wind$5,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   Trees and power lines were knocked down in the Florence area.

9. Jul 21, 2002Thunderstorm Wind$5,000
   National Weather Service narrative

   A cold front moved into a hot, humid and unstable airmass across Wisconsin leading to the development of severe thunderstorms in the central and north central parts of the state. High winds tore the roof off a warehouse in Wausau, otherwise damage from the storms consisted mainly of downed trees and powers lines. As of noon the next day there were still 2,200 customers without power in north central Wisconsin according to a press release from a utility company. As many as 7,500 customers lost power at some time during the storms.New record high temperatures were set at Appleton (Outagamie co.) 99 degrees; Antigo (Langlade co.), Sturgeon Bay (Door co.) and Manitowoc (Manitowoc co.)…

10. Sep 2, 2015Thunderstorm Wind$2,000
    National Weather Service narrative

    Thunderstorm winds downed a couple of trees on Highway 70 between Tipler and Florence. Torrential rainfall accompanied the highs winds.

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

104°FJul 29, 1917

All-time low

−39°F2 times, most recently Feb 4, 1996

Warmest night

85°F2 times, most recently Jul 27, 1919

Coldest day

−15°FJan 18, 1994

Wettest day

4.06 inAug 29, 1941

Snowiest day

21.0 inMar 16, 2026

Hottest year

1931mean 48.4°F

Coldest year

1917mean 38.7°F

Wettest year

195145.42 in

Driest year

190719.82 in

Snowiest season

128.5 in1938-39

Station Iron Mtn-kingsford Wwtp (USC00204090), 1,071 ft elevation, 9.0 miles from the population centre. Daily records from 1899 to September 30, 2026; 99.0% 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 USC00204090.
• 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.
• 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.