Thunderstorm Wind — Wells, North Dakota

2023-09-04 · near Chaseley, Wells, North Dakota

Event narrative

A large evergreen tree blew over.

Wider weather episode

An area of thunderstorms stretching from far southeast Montana towards southwest South Dakota developed ahead of an upper level trough, which moved to the northeast towards North Dakota. As the storms pushed into North Dakota, they encountered an atmosphere of elevated instability and strong deep layer shear. Strong and damaging wind gusts quickly became the key threat with these storms as they progressed to the northeast, though a few storms did produce large hail, with the largest hail being half-dollar size in McLean County. Multiple events of wind gusts over 70 mph occurred. The strongest wind gust estimated at 100 mph occurred in far northwest Kidder County, where neighboring farmsteads sustained heavy damage with a destroyed mobile home and grain bin, a severely damaged shop building, and multiple large trees either uprooted or snapped.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (47.4390, -99.8300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1141303. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.