Several reports of severe thunderstorm conditions met as system rolled through Idaho.
Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS PIH wrote it up.
Several reports of severe thunderstorm conditions met as system rolled through Idaho.
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 4, 3:32 AM MST, 9 hours 58 minutes earlier. Its key messages:
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Pocatello ID 432 AM MDT Sun May 4 2025 .KEY MESSAGES... - Cooler Weather Through Tuesday - Showers & Thunderstorms Increase Today Through Tuesday - Windy Conditions Monday && .SHORT TERM /THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT/... Issued at 214 AM MDT Sun May 4 2025 Showers and thunderstorms will increase west to east later today as the split flow system slowly works farther inland. Localized heavier rain and gusts over 45 mph (30-50% chance of occurrence) are possible with stronger storms, especially as they cross the Snake Plain...likely due to maximized instability and slightly drier air over the Plain. Overnight, we will see the bulk of the showers shifting into the central mountains and southwest Montana. For Monday and Monday night, the dominant southern low deepens near the Four Corners...while the northern end of the split continues across Canada. We will see a smaller secondary low develop and drop south across eastern Idaho. This will increase shower potential and also create a window of stronger winds. At the moment, we are looking at winds becoming more northwest to north during the afternoon and evening hours. The current forecast has speeds pushing into WIND ADVISORY territory across the INL and north toward Monida Pass. We will see if this trend continues later today and look more at the potential for issuing an advisory. Snow levels remain pretty high except across the central mountains tomorrow morning, where enough colder air filters in briefly to push them down to 6000-8000ft. With the low pulling farther away tomorrow night, snow levels drop to 6000-7000ft up north and closer to 8000-8500ft along the Utah border. && .LONG TERM /TUESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/... Issued at 214 AM MDT Sun May 4 2025 Models continue to show another closed low developing over the region Tuesday (somewhat embedded in the overall trough affecting southeast Idaho in the Short Term period above)...increasing chances for showers and isolated thunderstorms to linger Tuesday, especially in the southern and eastern highlands. Broad ridging is still expected to take over thereafter...supporting a warming trend with some readings over 80 degrees returning from Thursday onward. As far as other weather impacts...there still appears to be quite a bit of moisture running around under the ridge with a few shortwave troughs also passing by to our north, all of which make this a "messy" high pressure scenario. Hard to completely rule out at least isolated showers or thunderstorms during an afternoon or two somewhere in the forecast area, but confidence is very low in the details at this time. The overall chance of thunderstorms may tend to increase next weekend. && .AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z MONDAY/... Issued at 432 AM MDT Sun May 4 2025 Our long-advertised low pressure storm system finally arrives today, and will linger over the region for the next several days as well. Today...expect varying degrees of mid to high-level clouds and increasingly breezy conditions out of the southwest (especially at KBYI/KIDA/KPIH with lighter winds potentially going northwest for a few hours at KDIJ), although all terminals should remain solidly VFR for most of the day. The main aviation impact will come with showers and thunderstorms developing and tracking from southeast to northwest this afternoon/early this evening. Have retained the general structure of the previous TAFs for this period with predominant -SHRA everywhere but KSUN for a several hour period generally starting between 20-22z/2-4pm depending on the airport, with then a 2-4 hour PROB30 for -TSRA, and just slightly adjusted start/end times for everything based on the latest high-res simulated reflectivity forecasts. HREF ensemble max wind gusts are pinging 50+ MPH in a few isolated spots with these thunderstorms in the general corridor from the southern highlands northwest across the Snake Plain, so have increased potential gusts to 35kts in the PROB30s for KPIH and KIDA (30kts at KBYI and KDIJ). Unfortunately it's impossible to say EXACTLY where these stronger storms/stronger gusts will occur and inappropriate to try to infer that type of detail from the CAMs...the spots gusting highest will change again a bit with the 12z HREF run. Overall we didn't have much support in really any of the guidance for low cigs even during the predominant - SHRA periods this afternoon so we trended/nudged cigs slightly higher in the latest forecast, but admittedly our confidence in the cig forecast is rather low as guidance such as the NBM and even the HRRR don't seem to reflect this afternoon's convection at all in their cigs. Still think we could certainly see brief MVFR hits with any thunderstorms moving very near/directly over terminals, so retained that in the PROB30s. Consensus is good that this activity will lift further north this evening allowing the region to trend drier with cigs quickly returning to VFR and even breaking up overnight...have retained VCSH overnight everywhere but KSUN for now based on a few CAMs showing a few stray showers. NBM guidance supports lowering cigs again around/just after 12z/6am Monday morning (possibly modestly low stratus development in the now more moist low-level airmass?), but confidence is low in this scenario at this time and it's just beyond the current TAF period. We will continue to evaluate this in future forecast updates. && .PIH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && SHORT TERM...Keyes LONG TERM...KSmith AVIATION...KSmith
The Pocatello radar (KSFX), 148 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 20:27 UTC.
6 thunderstorm wind. Local standard time, as filed.
The Sheep Creek Hills mesonet station PC506 recorded a 63 mph wind gust.
Several public reports of wind damage in Grace to roofs, structures and power lines. Rocky Mountain Power reported 366 customers without power in the city of Grace.
Mesonet station 8419 D6 Kettle Butte US Highway 20 recorded 58 mph wind gust.
Mesonet station ROV recorded a 64 mph wind gust.
Mesonet station MON, 6 miles north of Monteview recorded a 58 mph wind gust.
Medicine Lodge mesonet site PC371 recorded 70 mph wind gust.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Idaho in 2025Every state in 2025This day in weather historyWarnings in Idaho, May 2025
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: 1269005, 1269004, 1268976, 1268979, 1268975, 1268974.