Stone County, Missouri · Galena
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With 8% of homes built before 1960 and about 20 hard-freeze nights a year, frozen and split pipes are a leading winter risk in the county.
May brings the most downpours to Stone County, part of 13.1 heavy-rain days a year. Check the sump first.
8% of homes here predate 1960, when clay and cast iron sewer laterals were standard. Roots and cracks in those lines are a common cause of backups.
In Stone County, 4.66 inches fell on the wettest day of the 2015–2024 record. Storms like that, and ice dams in snowy winters, cause most roof leaks.
31% of occupied homes in Stone County heat mainly with wood or propane, above the Missouri county median of 24.5%.
With 67 muggy nights a year, mold in Stone County can appear within days of a leak. Dry first, then clean.
Local risk profile
Stone County covers 464 square miles of southwest Missouri, with about 32,048 residents and 20,464 homes. Galena is the county seat; Kimberling City, Crane and Reeds Spring are the next largest communities. Much of its housing is recent, with a median build year of 1992.
38/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Moderate Stone County ranks 102 of 114 Missouri counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Stone County ranks highest compared with other Missouri counties.
Stone County is milder than most of Missouri, but not mild enough to skip winterizing. It averaged 85 freezing nights a year over 2015–2024, 20 of them at 20°F or colder, cold enough for pipes in outside walls and crawl spaces to freeze. Among 114 Missouri counties that's 94th.
The longest cold spell was straight 10 days without the temperature rising above freezing, ending in February 2021. The coldest night reached about -13°F on February 16, 2021. Burst pipes usually show up when a spell like that breaks and the ice thaws.
Expect the hardest freezes in January, inside a season that runs December to February. That's when an outdoor spigot left connected to a hose, or a pipe in a crawl space, is most likely to split.
On average the first fall freeze arrives around Oct 28 and the last spring freeze around Apr 10.
Heavy rain is a bigger factor here than in most of Missouri. About 13.1 days a year bring an inch or more (10th of 114), most often in May, out of 49.2 inches of total precipitation. On April 30, 2017, 4.66 inches fell in a single day. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 9.13 inches (through December 29, 2015).
About 76 days a year swing from below freezing at night to above freezing by day. Those freeze-thaw cycles feed ice dams on roofs, open cracks in foundations and driveways, and stress pipes that are already marginal.
Housing
Roughly 30% of the county's housing was built before 1980. That puts Stone among the newer housing stocks of Missouri's 114 counties.
Growth since 2000 added 31% of today's homes. In houses that new, the weak points are washing machine hoses, ice maker lines, water heaters and sump pumps rather than the pipes in the walls.
About 39% of homes went up between 1980 and 1999. Some houses from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s were plumbed with polybutylene, a gray plastic pipe known for failing at fittings. A plumber can tell you in a few minutes whether you have it.
Here 11% of housing is manufactured homes. Check the skirting and the heat tape on the main water line every fall, because that one exposed line is what freezes.
The Census counted 34% of homes as vacant, above the Missouri county median of 15.3%. Empty houses are where a small leak turns into a large claim, because nobody is there to hear it.
Beyond water
Stone County averages 67 warm, muggy nights a year (lows of 65°F or more) and gets the most rain in May. Mold grows when indoor humidity stays above about 60%, the EPA's ceiling. A basement dehumidifier set to 50% and drying anything wet within 24 to 48 hours prevents most problems.
Mold remediation: what to expectHeating fuel matters for fire risk. In Stone County it's 5% utility gas, 62% electric, 26% propane and 5% wood. Propane heat is more common here than in most Missouri counties. Heating equipment is one of the leading causes of home fires nationally, and the NFPA recommends having chimneys and vents inspected every year.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Stone County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Christian and Lawrence get more pipe-freeze nights than Stone. Lawrence County has the oldest housing nearby, with 51% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Stone | Missouri median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 7.6% | 25% | 110 of 114 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 30% | 53% | 108 of 114 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 31% | 21% | 15 of 114 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 11% | 9.8% | 42 of 114 |
| Vacant homes | 34% | 15% | 6 of 114 |
| Wood or propane heat | 31% | 25% | 43 of 114 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 20/yr | 28/yr | 94 of 114 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 13/yr | 10/yr | 10 of 114 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 76/yr | 77/yr | 61 of 114 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 67/yr | 65/yr | 45 of 114 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Missouri county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Stone County: freezing from December to February, heavy rain in March, May and October.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year estimates (2020-2024); weather from NOAA nClimGrid-Daily county averages (EpiNOAA), 2015–2024, averaged across the county; county boundaries from Census TIGER. Reviewed 2026-10-21. Methodology