Big Blow in Glacier
WEST GLACIER – That the wind blew Wednesday morning at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park wouldn’t normally be newsworthy, except for one thing.
The biggest gust, recorded between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., got up to a record 139 mph.
That’s whipping along pretty good – a speed the equivalent of an EF-3 tornado; faster than the winds generated by Typhoon Usagi last year that killed 35 people in China; faster than the winds Hurricane Katrina brought when it made landfall in Louisiana in 2005 and killed more than 1,800.
Of course, those were sustained winds coming off oceans, and this was just a gust – a spike in the wind speed lasting less than 20 seconds – through a mountain pass.
And, of course, no one was injured at Logan Pass, because no one was there. It will be well over two months before snow is cleared from Going-to-the-Sun Road, and anyone can access the pass.
Still, gusts over 100 mph are rare for Montana. Among the top 10 20th century weather events in the state, as compiled by the National Weather Service, is an Arctic storm in 1989 that brought downslope winds off the Eastern Front of the Rocky Mountains. Those winds gusted up to 124 mph in Choteau.
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