Strong winds with the passage of a cold front closed interstate 15 north of Idaho Falls for 7 hours with blowing dust.
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The episode as NWS PIH wrote it up.
Strong winds with the passage of a cold front closed interstate 15 north of Idaho Falls for 7 hours with blowing dust.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Pocatello, ID wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at May 13, 2:02 AM MST, 9 hours 58 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Pocatello ID 302 AM MDT Fri May 13 2022 .SHORT TERM (Today - Saturday)... Early morning satellite imagery shows yesterday's low pressure system moving into the northern plains while closer to home, a second shortwave trough is pushing into the Idaho Panhandle. Associated moisture is pushing quickly through the region this morning bringing rain and high elevation snow showers to portions the area. PoPs quickly drop off across the central mountains shortly after sunrise while lingering along the Divide and into the eastern highlands until early afternoon. Expecting another breezy to windy afternoon across the Arco Desert and into the Snake Plain. A wind advisory has been issued across these zones to account for this as gusts in the 35-45 mph range seem likely. Winds should begin to subside by later in the evening. A shallow ridge builds over the region late tonight as another Pacific disturbance rotates into the Oregon/Washington coast Saturday morning. Zonal upper level flow looks to stream some of this moisture into the region, mainly across the higher terrain of the central and eastern mountains on Saturday morning and afternoon. Weak ridging will allow for warmer temperatures, and thus higher snow levels, so precip should be rain below 7500 ft or so and above that accumulations would only be 1-2 inches so nothing overly impactful expected. Winds will remain a tad breezy but likely just below any headline thresholds. High temperatures in the valley locations should have no problem reaching the 60s on Saturday while maybe flirting with 70 in the eastern Magic Valley despite partly to mostly cloudy skies for much of the day. Things look to get even warmer on Sunday as the ridge continues to amplify. More on that below. McKaughan .LONG TERM (Sun through Thu night)... Sunday continues to be the driest day for eastern Idaho out of the next seven. Brief upper level ridging reaches its peak over the forecast area. It is also the warmest day of this period and the week with temperatures in the eastern Magic Valley and Goose Creek/Raft River Valleys. By Sun night the moisture gets into the western zones of the forecast area, the spread eastward Mon. Tue/Tue night/Wed is something of a break except for the northeast highlands. Upper level troughing to the north brings the next shortwave through Wed night and continues to be wet to the end of the period. However the nature of the pattern for the later times is making to difficult to know how much snow will develop at the end of the period. Some solutions, like the operational ECMWF, indicate a trough moving in from the north, bringing more snow with a colder pattern, while the operational GFS has an upper level low staying over the Pacific NW with southwest flow continuing to bring warmer and moist air into the forecast area. Neither though is dry, and clusters continue to have negative anomalies for the 500mb pattern. There is also large variability of precipitation amounts, with the warmer solutions bringing more precipitation from the Pacific in the southwest flow. Made sure that at least slight chance mention was made for these end periods, as the differences in solutions means no zone is safe from precipitation. Messick && .AVIATION...Trough moving through today will bring occasional mid- and high level CIGs, especially during the morning hours, then for the afternoon look for some partial clearing. Only KDIJ has a precipitation threat which should be limited to showers. This airdrome also has a risk of marginal VFR conditions for CIG. Another round of moisture with the next upstream trough arrives overnight. Greatest risk of precipitation are northern airports including KIDA and KDIJ. Another factor for today are the strong winds expected over this area with the approach of the trough for tonight. Afternoon wind will be approaching 20KT-25KT sustained with higher gusts. However, the wind will be coming from a traditional direction which should align well with runways. The only exception would be the variable wind at KSUN this morning until the northwest flow reaches the surface during the mid-morning hours. Messick && .PIH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... Wind Advisory from 11 AM this morning to 9 PM MDT this evening for IDZ052>054. &&
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
2 high wind, 1 dust storm. Local standard time, as filed.
A 61 mph wind gust was measured at the Puzzle Idaho Transportation site. Other gusts were 56 mph at Telegraph Hill and 55 mph at Atomic City.
The Botts Idaho Transportation site measured a wind gust of 60 mph. Ashton recorded 53 mph and River Rim 50 mph.
Interstate 15 closed from Roberts south to Idaho Falls due to blowing dust causing visibilities of 1/4 mile with widespread gusts of 50 to 60 mph. Some gusts measured were: 58 mph at Idaho Falls Airport, 59 mph at Kettle Butte, 53 mph at Osgood, and 53 mph at Ririe. The interstate was closed from 3:20 PM MDT until 10:48 PM MDT.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Idaho in 2022Every state in 2022This day in weather historyWarnings in Idaho, May 2022
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 1033318, 1033310, 1033308.