Thunderstorm Wind — Malheur, Oregon

2025-07-26 · near Cairo, Malheur, Oregon

Event narrative

As a thunderstorm passed over head, the Ontario airport ASOS recorded two severe wind gusts. The first one had a magnitude of 50kt occurring at 1848MST. Later, at 1856MST, the ASOS measured a gust of 58kt from the same thunderstorm.

Wider weather episode

On July 26th, Southwest flow aloft worked to advect midlevel moisture across eastern Oregon. Throughout the afternoon, surface heating destabilized the airmass and resulted in scattered thunderstorm development. While initial development was over higher terrain, increasing shear values allowed for storms to sustain themselves while moving off of the terrain. With a dry boundary layer, severe winds were the primary hazard.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (44.0200, -117.0100)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1294023. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.