As winds gusting up to 91 mph ripped through Cheyenne over the weekend, other areas of Wyoming got a much as 14 inches of snow.
Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day said conditions were perfect for a blast of spring that manifested very differently around the state.
In Cheyenne, sustained winds over 50 mph started around 9 a.m. Saturday and started to ebb off around 6 p.m. Sunday, with the highest gust measured at 91 mph, Day said.
“It was a perfect setup for a really bad winter storm in this region,” Day said. “The duration and intensity of the wind gusts weakens everything like fences, tree roots and more. I’m even getting reports out of Nebraska that are estimating hundreds of power poles have been knocked down.”
Day said the storm tracked in the perfect position and at the best time to hit several Western states with a vengance.
Lusk Gets Buried
Although Cheyenne residents were dealing with wind, people in Niobrara and Campbell counties were digging themselves out of a foot of snow on the ground.
Day said the Lusk area was likely hit the worst with snow, getting anywhere from 12 to 14 inches of the white powder, along with 6-foot drifts along the roads.
The Niobrara County Sheriff’s Department reported Monday morning that all highways going through the Lusk were still closed.
While it’s not unusual to get late spring storms in Wyoming, Day said this might be the worst of this winter’s last gasp. He doesn’t anticipate more spring storms quite as intense as this, but said that there will still be some strong weather before summer arrives.
“I’m not expecting anything like this in the next few weeks, because if it happens again, I gotta leave town,” he joked. “You’ll tend to see these big spring storms like this because of the changing seasons. Sometimes you’re on the snowy end and sometimes you’re on the windy side.”
Downed Trees
With Cheyenne pummeled by high winds over the weekend, EnvisiaCare Tree Services owner Nathan Ditto said his team received at least 10 emergency calls for downed trees on houses.
“We’re dealing with a lot of larger cottonwoods that have either come down or people want to get them down,” Ditto told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s going to be a busy week, for sure.”
Ditto’s team can have two to three jobs going at a time, but that is also dependent on how large the job is and what equipment is required. Cottonwoods in particular are a challenge due to their massive size and lengthy branches.
Black Hills Energy spokeswoman Laurie Farkas told Cowboy State Daily that Cheyenne customers got fairly lucky when it came to power outages during the weekend storm.
“The impact to our customers was pretty limited,” Farkas said. “We’ve mainly been out cleaning out debris from the storm on Sunday and today.”
Farkas did not have the number of customers that lost power over the weekend immediately available.
Cheyenne resident Buck McVeigh, who has been vocal about the city of Cheyenne clear-cutting trees in Holliday Park, said he hopes weekend windstorm doesn’t lead city officials to try and cut down more cottonwoods.
“I’m worried that the city, the mayor … they might use this as an example, saying, ‘See, I told you. We need to be taking these trees down,’” he told Cowboy State Daily. “That’s a totally unfair comparison with the wind blowing 70, 80 mph.”
