Montana's Hi-Line farmers assess windstorm damage

Jared Miller, a farmer who lives south of Havre, was at a high school conference track meet on May 13 when a “disastrous” windstorm whipped through eastern Montana.

The storm stopped the track meet for an hour.

“There was no visibility, and the winds were nuts,” Miller said. “Everyone headed to buses. We only had the mile relays left. It came in during the two mile, and there was like one girl still out on the track when it hit. We’d already got everybody else cleared out of there, and there was one girl still finishing up, but she did finish the race, and will get to go on the divisionals, which is kind of cool.”

He added: “I mean, you could see across the track, but that was about as far as you could see when it hit.”

Miller reported the worst damage to his farmland was to fencing — tumbleweeds stacked up on some fence line and pushed it over.

“Luckily, no cows were in that pasture,” Miller said.

Eastern and northern Montana suffered a large windstorm last week, causing issues for producers, the Montana Climate Office said in a news post.

The storm blew up on May 13, and according to researchers was a “strong midlatitude cyclone.”

Montana Mesonet weather stations recorded strong gusts and sustained high winds. Windspeeds over 70 mph were observed, which were, “capable of transporting large amounts of topsoil.” The area was already experiencing moderate to severe drought conditions.

Farmers and ranchers along the Hi-Line and throughout the impacted areas saw damage. 

Stine Decker, who lives south of Inverness, mostly grows wheat, peas, and safflower and said “the dirt literally sandblasts the tiny plants that are trying to grow.”

Decker said the storm blew tin off her shop and the dust and dirt also led to dangerous driving conditions.

“It was zero visibility,” Decker said. “I was just going to leave to grab the kids from school, and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to make it.’ I stopped up at the corner of my road and couldn’t see, and I turned around, came home.”

The area around where Miller lives received about a half-inch of rain after the storm, he said. 

“We’ll take the rain however we have to get it,” Miller said. “I guess, it was a good thing, because we were to the point that I was starting to think about skiing in South America, that’s how dry and depressing this wind has been this year.”

The storm was the most significant dust-blowing event “in recent years” across the Hi-Line, the Climate Office, which is an independent, state-designated body attached to the University of Montana.

This is the time of the year where farmers are planting their crops, and the report outlined several issues, including crops being buried and seed loss due to the wind carrying soil away.

“Across portions of the Hi-Line and northeast Montana, winds lifted loose soil into the atmosphere, creating widespread dust plumes that reduced visibility and transported valuable topsoil away from agricultural fields,” the Climate Office news post said. “In several areas, blowing dust became dense enough to resemble brownout conditions, significantly impacting local travel and field operations.”

Photos from Mesonet stations show significant dust, including photos from around the Medicine Lake area resembling “Mars” a caption for one of the images reads.

There could be longer-term problems as well.

“The loss of nutrient-rich topsoil threatens productivity by reducing water infiltration, degrading soil health, and increasing vulnerability to future erosion events,” the post says. “Repeated wind erosion events of this magnitude can diminish crop resilience, reduce yield potential, and place additional financial strain on producers.”