Dingman is Pennsylvania's no. 6 safest city from severe weather

DINGMAN — In a report released on Tuesday, Dingman earned its rank as being the no. 6 safest city in Pennsylvania from severe weather.

Looking at the frequency of storms, homeownersinsurance.com compiled severe weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to identify the cities that are less prone to severe storms and its consequences,. Residents in these safer zones are not only safer from the damage caused by severe storms but may also have lower property insurance costs due to less frequent losses in the area.

To find the safest cities, analysts used a variety of storm data points to create total scores for 40 Pennsylvania cities with populations greater than 10,000. Analysts used the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration storm events database to factor in occurrences of flooding, wind, hail and lightning in each area. Some data sources were only available at the county level. Cities were assigned points based on the information for the county in which the city is predominately located.

Dingman ranked no. 6 because it has very low occurrences of lightning and low/average occurrences of flooding and wind.

Altoona, in Blair County, made no. 1, while Hempfield, in Westmoreland County, is at the bottom of the list.