Windstorm sweeps through the valley

A blustery spring storm muscled its way into the Flathead Valley Thursday, whipping the area with 50 mph wind gusts, toppling trees, cutting power lines and sending a carport tumbling into a neighbor’s yard.

The force was fiercest from the Lakeside area to south Kalispell.

“I’m telling you, it was just an explosion, just a big burst of wind,” Gary Jackson said of the moment the wind hit his store.

He’s the general manager for Aaron’s Sales and Lease just off U.S. 93 South in Kalispell. He had been working inside the store with his employees when the explosion rattled the front windows and sent them outside to see what happened.

What Jackson found was a crumpled rooftop sign.

“It appears a big burst of wind came and just took it down,” he said. “It actually broke from about 10 feet on either side of the building, just broke and folded it back.”

Flathead County sheriff’s dispatchers fielded 10 calls about downed trees and power lines, and Kalispell police had two more. A tree reportedly fell on a Whitefish Stage house just north of the Stillwater River, and another fell on a house on Fourth Avenue. At one home, a trampoline reportedly was tossed into a treetop.

Flathead Electric Cooperative was scrambling to deal with power outages in 18 locations at 3 p.m. The largest affected about 1,000 members served by the Haskill substation around Marion, with a few more affected in Libby. In Columbia Falls, about 800 were without power.

Spot outages temporarily darkened areas around Whitefish, mid-Kalispell and Bigfork/Swan areas. Public Relations Officer Wendy Ostrom Price said most members had their power restored in an hour or less.

Kalispell city workers were out with chain saws and trucks, clearing away toppled trees and blown-down debris across the south end of town.

Parks and Recreation Director Mike Baker said two trees were uprooted, one of them on Fifth Avenue East. A large spruce in the boulevard was down on Sixth Avenue West, he said, and another fell from a westside yard into the street. A couple trees were snapped off in Woodland Park, as well.

Baker said calls started coming in around 12:30 p.m. Crews were finished with essential cleanup by 3:30 p.m. but will be back at the remainder this morning.

Jessica Nolte, a meteorologist with the National Weather service in Missoula, said jet stream winds at 9,000 or 10,000 feet fueled the storm, swooping down to the mountain ridge tops and gushing into the valley.

“We had a very strong trough that came into the area and (brought) a lot of dynamics with it,” Nolte said. “It’s probably one of the most well organized we’ve seen in a long time.”

Weather Service observers reported sustained 40 mph winds near Lakeside at 10:30 or 11 a.m., she said, and gusts of 45-50 mph a couple miles south of Kalispell about 3:30 p.m. Ronan reported a 38 mph gust at 3:15 p.m. and Glacier Park International Airport had a 39 mph gust 15 minutes later.

Those strong winds along the storm front brought in rain that gave way to a bit of sunshine that ushered in snowfall by late afternoon.

“It’s a mix,” Nolte said. “Behind the cold front that came through, we have a lot of cooler air and a lot of unstable air, so there’s the ability for showers to develop, and be heavy at times. We can have rain, snow, graupel … snow pellets.”

Higher elevations and mountain passes were getting high winds and lots of snow, she said, putting travelers in whiteout conditions.

In Glacier National Park, a weather station at 7,400 feet on the Garden Wall recorded a 74 mph wind gust at noon and a 71 mph gust at 4 p.m. By 10 a.m. Thursday the Logan Pass weather station had recorded overnight wind gusts up to 60 mph.

A high-wind warning for the Flathead and Mission valleys remained in place until 9 p.m. Thursday, Nolte said. That means sustained winds of at least 40 mph, with gusts reaching 55 mph or better.

Today, she said, look for widely scattered showers and a chance of snow showers. Temperatures will be in the mid-40s and winds will be lighter at 10-20 mph.

To check complete records from Thursday’s storm, visit www.weather.gov/missoula.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com