Thunderstorm Wind — Big Horn, Montana

2022-07-15 · near Hardin, Big Horn, Montana

Direct deaths

Injuries

56 EG

Magnitude

Event narrative

Around 4:15 PM MDT, a thunderstorm outflow moved through the Hardin area. It produced a wind gust of 62 mph in the 4:35 PM MDT observations from the Big Horn County Airport. Along with the outflow winds, blowing dust reduced visibility to less than a quarter mile on the AWOS. This resulted in a 20 to 30 vehicle pile up along Interstate 90 around mile marker 493 reported at 4:30 PM MDT, very close to the airport. Prior to this, the Montana DOT RWIS station at Arrow Creek Hill, 25 miles west of Hardin, reported a peak wind gust of 48 mph about 15 minutes prior. This accident resulted in 6 deaths and multiple injuries.

Wider weather episode

A north/south line of thunderstorms that stretched across multiple counties produced outflow winds well ahead of the thunderstorms. This outflow was very strong and produced winds over 60 mph. These winds produced an area of blowing dust across Interstate 90 just west of Hardin. Visibility dropped to zero resulting in a multiple car pileup which resulted in several deaths and multiple injuries.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (45.7500, -107.6700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1038034. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.