National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Extremely Critical Fire Weather in New Mexico; Enhanced Severe Thunderstorm Risk in Central U.S.

High winds and very dry conditions will bring extremely critical fire weather over a large part of New Mexico today. Red Flag and High Wind Warnings have been issued. Isolated to scattered severe thunderstorms may produce large to very large hail and localized damaging winds late this afternoon into evening from the eastern Central Plains to the Upper Midwest. Read More >

Overview

From the late afternoon of January 13 through January 14, 2021, a powerful low pressure system brought very strong winds to western and central North Dakota. The strongest observed wind gust was 93 mph at the Williston Basin Airport. There were many reports of property and tree damage, along with a few power outages. This event will go down as one of the worst non-thunderstorm wind events in recent memory.

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Highest wind gusts observed as of 1 PM CST on Thursday, January 14th. Colors are interpolated between observations.