The mildest-climate counties: 58 to 72°F average and the fewest severe storms

Sutter County, California has the fewest severe storm events of the 359 US counties with 50,000 or more people that average 58 to 72°F: 1.6 a year, at an average 64°F (NOAA Storm Events Database; NOAA Climate Normals).

Mild means two things: a year that never gets brutal in either direction, and weather that mostly leaves you alone. This list takes counties of 50,000 or more whose annual average temperature sits between 58 and 72°F and ranks them by how few severe storm events NOAA logs there in a typical year: tornadoes, hail, damaging wind, floods, winter storms.

One caveat matters. NOAA counts a hurricane as a single event, so Gulf Coast parishes can post low storm counts while FEMA's hazard score, in the next column, puts them near the top of the country for expected losses. Read the two columns together. NOAA's separate heat-event count is near zero for every county in the database, so it does not move this ranking.

See also: Best weather states, ranked by the same data · The sunniest counties in January.

25 of 359 qualifying counties shown. Click a county for its page.

Sources: NOAA Storm Events Database · NOAA Climate Normals · FEMA National Risk Index 2023 (0–100, all hazards) · Zillow ZHVI 2024. Population: Census 2023 estimates. Recomputed from the county database every day.

What the list shows

The 25 counties come from 10 states. California appears most often, with 11 of the 25. Sutter, CA leads at 1.6; number 25, Loudon, TN, sits at 4.8, a gap of 3.2 from top to bottom of the table.

Across all 978 counties over the 50,000-person floor, the median value of the ranking column (Avg Storm Events) is 14.0. Every county on this list is below that middle.

On housing, of the 25 with a Zillow figure, 6 have a median home under $200K and 6 are at $500K or more. The cheapest is Iberia Parish, LA at $144K; the most expensive is Santa Barbara, CA at $1005K.

How we rank

Every county with 50,000 or more residents in the Census 2023 estimate is eligible, provided it has Average Temp between 58°F and 72°F. Counties are ranked by Avg Storm Events, lowest first, from NOAA Storm Events Database. A county missing any figure in the table is left out rather than scored as zero, which is why 978 of the 3,222 places in the county database qualify and 359 meet the requirements. Connecticut’s planning regions are excluded because they are not counties. The table is recomputed from the database every day, so figures here can move as sources update.

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