Grand County, Utah: Natural Disaster Risk and History
Grand County, Utah has a Very Low natural-hazard risk rating in FEMA's National Risk Index (v1.20, December 2025): a score of 10.3 out of 100, higher than about 10% of US counties, with lightning, landslides and avalanches scoring highest of its 18 hazards and $5.2 million a year in expected losses.
OpenFEMA lists 2 federal disaster declarations that included Grand County since 1977, not counting 2 for COVID-19; the latest is EM-3223-UT (Hurricane Katrina Evacuation, declared 5 September 2005). NOAA's Storm Prediction Center recorded 5 tornadoes touching Grand County from 1950 to 2025.
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Population 9,604 Buildings worth $2.3 billion Area 3,722 sq mi Risk rank in Utah 20 of 29 FIPS 49019
All 18 hazards, highest risk first
FEMA National Risk Index| Hazard | Risk rating | Score | Expected loss a year | How often | Events in record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lightning | Relatively High | 87.2 | $1.1 million | about 48 a year | 34,793 strikes |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | 82.4 | $23,555 | about 2.4 a year | — |
| Avalanche | Relatively Moderate | 80.6 | $456,669 | about once every 30 years | 1 |
| Wildfire | Very Low | 58.6 | $80,738 | about once every 855 years | — |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 38.8 | $62,406 | about 105 a year | 2,667 |
| Earthquake | Very Low | 32.7 | $101,138 | about once every 380 years | — |
| Heat wave | Very Low | 32.3 | $161,112 | about once every 1.2 years | 14 |
| Winter weather | Relatively Low | 25.8 | $25,360 | about 1 a year | 192 |
| Inland flooding | Very Low | 25.4 | $3.1 million | about 2.5 a year | 71 |
| Ice storm | Very Low | 5.6 | $2,764 | about once every 67 years | 0 |
| Tornado | Very Low | 5.0 | $19,868 | about once every 8.6 years | 5 |
| Strong wind | Very Low | 3.7 | $22,521 | about once every 5.2 years | 8 |
| Cold wave | Very Low | 3.2 | $511 | about once every 56 years | 0.3 |
| Hail | Very Low | 2.5 | $4,098 | about once every 10 years | 3.7 |
| Volcanic activity | No Rating | 0.0 | — | rarer than once in 1,000 years | 0 |
| Coastal flooding | Not Applicable | — | — | — | — |
| Hurricane | Not Applicable | — | — | — | — |
| Tsunami | Not Applicable | — | — | — | — |
Score: FEMA's percentile among US counties that face the hazard (higher = more risk). Expected loss: FEMA's modelled average yearly loss to buildings, people (as a statistical value) and crops. How often: FEMA's annualised frequency of the hazard in the county; for some hazards it counts event-days, so it is a rough guide, not a forecast. "Not Applicable" means FEMA does not model that hazard here.
Federal disaster declarations 2
Most common: Coastal Storm 1, Drought 1.
| Decade | Declarations | Incident types |
|---|---|---|
| 1970s | 1 | Drought |
| 2000s | 1 | Coastal Storm |
The last 2
Widest declarations that included Grand County
- Hurricane Katrina Evacuation (2005, EM-3223-UT): 29 Utah counties designated.
- Drought (1977, EM-3024-UT): 27 Utah counties designated.
Named storms in its declarations: Hurricane Katrina (2005).
Not counted above: 2 COVID-19 ("Biological") declarations — in 2020 every US county was included. Utah also had 2 statewide declarations with no county list.
Tornado record since 1950 5
| Tornadoes touching the county | 5 |
|---|---|
| Strongest-rated | (E)F2 ×2 |
| Peak month | September (2) |
| Deadliest | — |
| Longest path | 4 May 1961, F2, 9.4 mi path |
| Most recent | 22 Sep 2006, F0, 0.2 mi path |
| Deaths / injuries on those paths | 0 / 0 |
| Rating | (E)F0 | (E)F1 | (E)F2 | (E)F3 | (E)F4 | (E)F5 | Unrated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Decade | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Deaths and injuries are for each tornado's whole path, which can run beyond this county. F-scale ratings before February 2007, Enhanced Fujita (EF) after.
How Grand County compares with its 5 nearest counties
| County | Distance | Overall risk | Score | Top hazard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand County (this page) | — | Very Low | 10.3 | Lightning |
| Mesa County, CO | 95 km | Relatively Low | 75.1 | Landslide |
| Emery County | 98 km | Very Low | 7.0 | Lightning |
| Carbon County | 115 km | Very Low | 8.7 | Landslide |
| Uintah County | 127 km | Very Low | 4.0 | Landslide |
| Montrose County, CO | 130 km | Relatively Low | 49.0 | Lightning |
Nearest by distance between county centres. Every county in Utah, ranked.
Vulnerability and resilience
| Social vulnerability | Relatively Low 31.2 |
|---|---|
| Community resilience | Relatively Moderate 44.5 |
| Community risk factor | 0.99 |
| Expected annual loss, all hazards | $5.2 million |
FEMA scales expected losses up where social vulnerability is high (people who may find it harder to prepare, evacuate or recover) and down where community resilience is high. A factor above 1 raises the risk score. For social vulnerability a high rating is worse; for resilience a high rating is better.
Prepare for Grand County's main hazards
- Right now: National Weather Service alerts for Utah · all official warnings on Global Incident Tracker.
- Lightning: Weather alerts for Utah
- Landslide: Landslides recorded
- Avalanche: Official warnings now
- Your property's flood zone: FEMA Flood Map Service Center ↗ — this page cannot tell you that.
- Official preparedness guidance: Ready.gov ↗ and your county emergency management office.
What this page shows, and what it misses
FEMA's National Risk Index rates a whole county against every other US county; it is a planning-level estimate for nationwide comparison, not a flood-zone map and not a substitute for a local risk assessment or the risk to one home. Declarations are presidential disaster, emergency and fire management declarations that named this county; state declarations and SBA or USDA designations are not included. Tornadoes are counted when the county is one of up to four listed on the track; 670 tornadoes that crossed a state line carry no county list in NOAA's file and are left out.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Risk Index Dataset: National Risk Index Counties - v1.20.0 (December 2025). Retrieved from https://services.arcgis.com/XG15cJAlne2vxtgt/ArcGIS/rest/services/National_Risk_Index_Counties/FeatureServer/0/query on November 2, 2026, 1:20 PM EST. This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Risk Index dataset API or downloadable datasets 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).
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), OpenFEMA Dataset: Disaster Declarations Summaries - v2, retrieved from https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v2/DisasterDeclarationsSummaries on November 2, 2026, 1:21 PM EST. 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).
Tornado records: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, Severe Weather Database, tornadoes 1950–2025 (https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/data/1950-2025_actual_tornadoes.csv, downloaded 2 November 2026). Public domain; not endorsed by NOAA. Compiled by Global Incident Tracker.
Questions about Grand County
What natural disasters is Grand County, Utah most at risk from?
Grand County, Utah has a Very Low natural-hazard risk rating in FEMA's National Risk Index (v1.20, December 2025): a score of 10.3 out of 100, higher than about 10% of US counties, with lightning, landslides and avalanches scoring highest of its 18 hazards and $5.2 million a year in expected losses.
How many federal disaster declarations has Grand County had?
OpenFEMA lists 2 federal disaster declarations that included Grand County since 1977, not counting 2 for COVID-19; the latest is EM-3223-UT (Hurricane Katrina Evacuation, declared 5 September 2005). Another 2 Utah declarations were made statewide without a county list.
How many tornadoes have hit Grand County?
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center recorded 5 tornadoes touching Grand County from 1950 to 2025.
Is the National Risk Index a flood zone map?
No. The National Risk Index is a planning-level estimate for a whole county, built for nationwide comparison. It does not tell you the flood zone or the risk of a single property: for that, look up the address on FEMA's Flood Map Service Center (msc.fema.gov) and ask your local floodplain manager.