Douglas County, Wisconsin · Superior
Water spreading, a burst pipe, sewage, mold or smoke? Call to be connected with a restoration company that serves Superior, Lake Nebagamon and Superior. Start the steps below while you wait.
Answered 24/7 by a participating local provider. We're a referral service and don't do the work ourselves. How it works
Start here
Pick the closest match. These steps limit the damage and protect your insurance claim. Skip anything that isn't safe.
Douglas County averages 98 nights a year at 20°F or colder, mostly November to April, and 40% of its homes predate 1960.
September brings the most downpours to Douglas County, part of 4.5 heavy-rain days a year. Check the sump first.
40% 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 Douglas County, 4.46 inches fell on the wettest day of the 2015–2024 record. Storms like that, and ice dams in snowy winters, cause most roof leaks.
26% of occupied homes in Douglas County heat mainly with wood or propane, below the Wisconsin county median of 32.9%.
Muggy summer nights, lows of 65°F or more, come about 2 times a year in Douglas County. Mold after a leak spreads fastest from June through August.
Local risk profile
Douglas County covers 1,304 square miles of northwest Wisconsin, with about 44,229 residents and 23,154 homes. Besides Superior, the county seat, the biggest communities are Lake Nebagamon, Solon Springs and Poplar. The county's median home was built in 1969.
57/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Elevated Douglas County ranks 19 of 72 Wisconsin counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Douglas County ranks highest compared with other Wisconsin counties.
Douglas is on the colder side of Wisconsin for pipes. It averaged 176 freezing nights a year over 2015–2024, 98 of them at 20°F or colder, cold enough for pipes in outside walls and crawl spaces to freeze. Among 72 Wisconsin counties that's 9th.
The longest cold spell was straight 59 days without the temperature rising above freezing, ending in March 2019. The coldest night reached about -34°F on January 31, 2019. 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 November to April. 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 7 and the last spring freeze around May 16.
Douglas gets fewer downpours than most Wisconsin counties, but they still fill basements. About 4.5 days a year bring an inch or more (66th of 72), most often in September, out of 31.7 inches of total precipitation. On July 12, 2016, 4.46 inches fell in a single day. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 5.71 inches (through June 18, 2018).
About 94 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
66% of homes in Douglas County predate 1980, above the Wisconsin county median of 54.1%, which ranks 4th of Wisconsin's 72 counties.
40% were built before 1960. Homes from that era often still have galvanized steel supply pipe, which rusts from the inside until it pinholes, and cast iron drains that crack with age. Slow leaks behind walls are a common start to water damage in these houses.
With 17% of homes empty at survey time, landlords and seasonal owners should shut off the main or schedule checks in winter. An unheated vacant house is also where many policies limit freeze coverage.
Beyond water
Douglas County averages 2 warm, muggy nights a year (lows of 65°F or more) and gets the most rain in June. Keep indoor humidity under 60%, as the EPA advises, and dry any leak within 24 to 48 hours; in a humid month a wet basement left alone won't dry by itself.
Mold remediation: what to expectMain heating fuel in Douglas County's occupied homes: 53% utility gas, 18% electric, 22% propane and 4% wood. Fires here are likelier to start in the kitchen or the wiring than in the furnace. After any fire, keep the HVAC off until ducts are checked, or soot will travel through the house.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Douglas County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Douglas gets more pipe-freeze nights than any of its neighbors. Its housing is the oldest in the area by share of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Douglas | Wisconsin median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 40% | 31% | 10 of 72 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 66% | 54% | 4 of 72 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 17% | 21% | 59 of 72 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 4.6% | 4.8% | 39 of 72 |
| Vacant homes | 17% | 12% | 27 of 72 |
| Wood or propane heat | 26% | 33% | 46 of 72 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 98/yr | 73/yr | 9 of 72 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 4.5/yr | 6.3/yr | 66 of 72 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 94/yr | 94/yr | 31 of 72 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 2/yr | 11/yr | 61 of 72 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Wisconsin county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Douglas County: freezing from November to April, heavy rain in June, July and September.
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