Thunderstorm Wind — Missoula, Montana

2024-07-24 · near Lolo Hot Spgs, Missoula, Montana

Event narrative

A state of emergency was declared by both the Missoula County Commission Chair and Missoula Mayor because of the unprecedented wind damage that occurred. The 80 to 100 mph winds brought thousands of trees down across the county. It wasn't just a quick gust, but rather high winds that lasted for a couple of minutes. This led to power and transmission poles breaking in half and triggering power outages that lasted for up to a week after, affecting close to 40,000 customers, many of which had to toss out spoiled food. One utility reported 80 power poles were broken across their service area with 42 of those knocked down or shattered along Mullan Road, located approximately 7 miles west of US-93. Many traffic lights did not work until two days after the event. The Missoula County 911 call center received over 600 calls with many people not getting through. The main repeater on Horseback Ridge, located southwest of Missoula, went down because of the wind and firefighters could only use line-of-sight radio communication throughout the night. Natural gas meters and natural gas lines were damaged. The DNRC gave a conservative estimate that 1,000 city trees were uprooted, splintered at the truck or suffered some other total failure. Their Missoula Campus lost 52 mature ponderosa pines, and over 25 tree species. Water conservation restrictions were put up in place because the Missoula Water was running on generators. Many parts of the city were shut down including parks and mainstem rivers due to downed power lines. Live power lines trapped many people traveling through the city, including two teenagers who sat in their car for over an hour until rescue personnel could reach them in the Lower Miller Creek area. Over a hundred homes had some sort of shingle or siding damage, and many could not get roofers to fix it until 2 months later. Portions of the Blackfoot River were closed due to downed power lines and damaged power poles and lines were also reported in the Clinton, Salmon Lake, Condon and Seeley Lake areas.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane force winds from a rare derecho brought widespread damage to west-central Montana. The Montana governor issued an executive order declaring a disaster in both Missoula and Mineral counties due to the extent of the damage and impact.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (46.6505, -114.5838)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1204672. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.