North Dakota wind history
1,173
Days with wind on record, statewide
1,036
Days at 58 mph or more
143mph
Strongest measured, Sep 1997
14
Cities with wind on record nearby
Wind by city in North Dakota
Ranked by days with wind on record within 10 miles of each city's centre, then by population, each with its strongest figure: measured in the observed tone, an estimate in the estimated tone. Every place of five thousand people or more has a page; the busiest are listed here and the rest are a disclosure away.
- 01 Bismarck 149 days 111 mph
- 02 Mandan 146 days 90 mph
- 03 Grand Forks 142 days 105 mph
- 04 Dickinson 127 days 90 mph
- 05 West Fargo 123 days 100 mph
- 06 Fargo 121 days 100 mph
- 07 Williston 99 days 100 mph
- 08 Horace 94 days 100 mph
- 09 Jamestown 83 days 100 mph
- 10 Minot 74 days 85 mph
- 11 Wahpeton 73 days 100 mph
- 12 Devils Lake 64 days 111 mph
- 13 Valley City 62 days 112 mph
- 14 Watford City 44 days 83 mph
Wind days by year in North Dakota
Days with wind At 58 mph or more
The busiest year on record is 2022, with 68 days of wind, 60 of them at 58 mph or more.
Strongest wind recorded in North Dakota
Measured Estimated, not measured
| Date | Speed | Reading | Evidence | County |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sep 1997 | 143 mph | Sustained | Ground observation | SLOPE |
| 28 Jun 2018 | 130 mph | Sustained | Ground observation | Not stated |
| 28 Jun 2018 | 130 mph | Gust | Ground observation | MERCER |
| 16 May 1996 | 128 mph | Sustained | Ground observation | GRANT |
| 10 Jul 2011 | 127 mph | Sustained | Ground observation | Not stated |
| 10 Jul 2011 | 127 mph | Gust | Ground observation | SARGENT |
| 12 Jul 2006 | 125 mph | Gust | Ground observation | MCLEAN |
| 12 Jul 2006 | 125 mph | Sustained | Ground observation | Not stated |
Get the wind report for an address in North Dakota
The figures on this page are the record across North Dakota: enough to know there is something to cite, and from where. None of it says what reached one roof.
Run the address and the same archive is searched at the property: every wind report with its distance and bearing from the roof, the nearest station's readings, the analysis grid sampled at the address and labelled as analyzed, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.
How this page is made
- What counted
- Every wind report in the archive filed under North Dakota by its source, with the cities ranked by the reports within 10 miles of each centre. A wind day is a calendar date with at least one report: four sources describing one storm are one afternoon of wind, not four. A report's figure is its gust where it has one and its sustained speed otherwise, and the tables say which.
- Measured and estimated
- A speed reported by a person or an instrument on the ground, whether read from an anemometer or judged by an observer from what the wind did, is filed as observed; a speed inferred from a grid or an analysis is an estimate and is marked as one. The two are never added together.
- Severe
- A day counts as severe when its strongest figure reached 58 mph, the National Weather Service criterion for a damaging gust. Weaker wind is still on the record, and still on this page.
- Stations
- A station reading is the wind at the instrument, not at any address, and is listed with the distance from the page's centre to the instrument. Readings are fetched for the ground around an address when a report is run and held afterwards, so the stations on a page are the ones within 30 miles that the archive holds readings from.
- What this is not
- Neighbouring places share reports, so counts are not exclusive. This page is the record around a place; it is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about what reached one.
- Terms used on this page
- Peak gust, sustained wind, independent source: each term this page uses is defined in the glossary as the report prints it.
- The record
- Searched from 1996 to today. Compiled 27 August 2026 and rebuilt daily as the archive deepens. Records are reproduced as the federal sources published them. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.
About this record
Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.
No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.
A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.
These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.