Heavy Winds Rip Across Montana Causing Outages

High winds ripped across Montana on Wednesday and early Thursday, knocking out power lines, shutting down roads and generally causing havoc.

Gusts nearing 100 miles per hour battered the state, according to a National Weather Service report. Thousands across the state lost power, including more than 30,000 people in the Flathead Valley.

On Thursday morning, NorthWestern Energy’s outage map showed dozens of scattered outages across the state, including larger ones near Boulder and Clancy.

One day earlier, North-Western said 35,000 households had experienced outages, and crews were working as quickly as possible to safely restore services.

The weather was well out of the norm, according to Trent Parker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service based in Missoula.

“This is very unusual,” Parker said on Thursday, adding that strong wind is usually associated more with something like a thunderstorm, and that wasn’t the case.

“One of the key pieces is that we were so warm,” Parker said. “Usually this time of year, we’re able to lock in some colder air down to the lower valleys. And what that would do is it kind of puts a lid on top of us and prevents those really strong winds from mixing down towards the surface. Usually, if we have that cold air down the valleys, the wind kind of just rides on top of all those locations where we have a lot of people.”

Those strong winds came from the upper atmosphere, Parker said, with a low pressure system exacerbating their ferocity. Saturated ground is also an issue, he said — normally at this point in the year, the ground is frozen and trees would not have as much of an issue standing up to winds.

“That prevents the trees from really being cemented in the ground,” Parker said.

The highest wind gust recorded — 93 miles per hour — on Wednesday was in Park County, though the National Weather Service warned in the post not all recordings are considered official. Big Timber saw a gust of 88 miles per hour, while the Billings airport recorded wind speeds reaching 79 miles per hour.

Firefighters in Billings said the wind event spawned more than 170 calls for service, including “multiple working structure fires,” according to a post from their union. In Missoula, the city said on Wednesday afternoon that it was responding to reports of downed trees and power lines.

Roads had to be closed in both Missoula and Helena because of the storm — including the usually busy intersection of Montana Avenue and Custer Avenue in the northern part of the Queen City. City officials also shut down Helena’s walking mall and warned pedestrians to take extreme caution.

In northern Montana, blizzard conditions brought travel in several counties to a standstill. It also led to a rare advisory.

“A Civil Emergency Message has been issued for Phillips, Valley, Roosevelt and McCone counties through 6 a.m. due to whiteout blizzard conditions,” a NWS bulletin sent shortly after 9:30 p.m. Wednesday reads. “Road closures include all of the City of Glasgow, US Highway 2 from Malta to Wolf Point and MT Highway 13 from Wolf Point to Circle.”

Highway 2 was reopened Thursday morning, according to a post from the Phillips County Sheriff’s Office. Law enforcement there reported multiple vehicles stuck “on all roads in Phillips County” on Wednesday evening.

“No travel is advised,” a social media post from the Phillips County Sheriff’s Department said. “If you feel the need to travel you better make sure you have supplies because we do not have the manpower to come rescue you.”

According to its website, Phillips County has five dispatchers, five deputies, a sheriff and an undersheriff.

Lincoln County, where flooding prompted an earlier emergency declaration from Gov. Greg Gianforte and request for federal assistance, also issued an advisory for its residents to not travel unless it was an emergency.

Wheatland County also temporarily closed Highway 191 due to an incident involving a semi truck, though it was reopened late Wednesday night.

“Winds have been reported strong enough that patrol vehicles are unable to stay on the roadway,” Wheatland County Emergency management reported on Facebook on Wednesday.