UPDATE - tornado confirmed - click here for details.
A storm system worked its way through Montana and southern Alberta/Saskatchewan on Monday, July 18, 2022.
There were some showers and thunderstorms associated with this storm system, and a few of those thunderstorms were severe with damaging winds and/or large hail.
There was also one tornado warning issued for northeastern Valley County and western Daniels County on Monday evening.
A possible tornado passed through Glentana in Valley County, and there was significant damage in town, including trees being blown over, roofs being blown off, a car being overturned, and a shop being blown over.
The National Weather Service in Glasgow has estimated that winds of at least 80 miles per hour caused some of this damage, so if this damage is in fact from a tornado, then it was likely at least an EF-1 tornado, which is pretty strong for our area.
If this is confirmed by the NWS as a tornado, it would be the second confirmed tornado in north-central/northeastern Montana this year, with the other being an EF-0 tornado that occurred in Judith Basin County on July 6, 2022.
Montana's tornado season generally spans from late May through early August. Most Montana tornadoes are relatively small and usually touch down in sparsely-populated areas – but not always.
In 2016, an EF-3 tornado hit the town of Baker in southeast Montana. In 2015, a small tornado hit near Sidney in Richland County in eastern Montana, injuring one person and causing some damage.
In June 2010, a tornado hit Billings, causing significant damage to the MetraPark facility. Just several weeks later, two people were killed when a tornado struck a family ranch near Reserve in northeastern Montana.
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