THE WEATHER BEAT · AUG 31

The Wind Crossed the Shortgrass.

By The Weather Rock · August 31, 2026, 6:00 p.m. EDT · 9 min read

The rock's morning read on what the country's weather did yesterday, and what is officially expected today. Sources are the wire products themselves, cited as they read.

Yesterday: the wind crossed the shortgrass

Sunday afternoon, August 30, a long line of thunderstorm wind ran from southeast Montana across the far corner of Wyoming into northwest South Dakota and southwest North Dakota. It started quietly, with gusts in the 60s along I-80 in Wyoming and at Montana mesonet stations through the early afternoon. Then it found Harding County, South Dakota. At 3:31 p.m. MDT a station one mile north of Buffalo measured a 100 mph gust. That number is the story of the day.

Buffalo took it hard by the reports that came in afterward: significant tree damage, shingles blown off house roofs, some building damage from falling trees, and a few trees uprooted. The wind kept working northeast through the evening. In Sturgis, trees and large limbs came down, including the top half of a large evergreen snapped off. Across the state line in Hettinger, North Dakota, mature pine trees were uprooted in town and law enforcement reported a downed powerline near the high school football field. East of there, near Haynes, a ham radio operator relayed a photo of a house with its metal roof partially peeled back.

For all that wind, the day produced no tornado reports, and exactly one hail report in the whole country: quarter-sized stones at Big Water, Utah, at 4:33 p.m. MDT, in the same monsoon air that matters again today.

The numbers

Top measured gusts, August 30 (all times MDT):

Report count for the day: 112 wind, 1 hail, 0 tornado. Reports ran from Carbon County, Wyoming and Garfield County, Montana through Harding, Butte, Meade, Perkins, Lawrence, and Pennington counties in South Dakota into Adams, Bowman, and Mountrail counties in North Dakota.

Source: Storm Prediction Center storm reports for the 12Z August 30 to 12Z August 31 period. All reports are preliminary; SPC labels them so and this brief does too. The Hettinger gust was measured at 10 meters, with 56 mph observed at the surface, per the report remark.

Today, officially

Tropical Depression Five, aimed at the upper Texas coast

A newly formed depression sat over the northwest Gulf on Monday, and the products stacked up along the coast from Texas to Louisiana through the day. As of National Hurricane Center Advisory Number 2, issued 4 p.m. CDT Monday, August 31, the center sat about 105 miles south of Morgan City, Louisiana, drifting west-northwest at 6 mph with top sustained winds of 35 mph. The advisory expects it to become a tropical storm Monday evening. In the advisory's words, "the center of the system is predicted to reach the northwestern Gulf Coast within the warning area on Tuesday and move inland over southeast Texas on Tuesday night."

The watch and warning footprint, per that advisory:

- A Tropical Storm Warning from Port Bolivar, Texas to the Vermilion/Iberia Parish line, Louisiana. This advisory extended the warning eastward to that parish line.

- A new Storm Surge Watch from High Island, Texas to the Vermilion/Cameron Parish line, Louisiana.

On land, per NWS zone alerts active Monday evening, the warning covered the Bolivar Peninsula and Chambers County in Texas and Lower Jefferson, West Cameron, and East Cameron parishes in Louisiana. The rain is the larger concern in the local offices' reading. Flood Watches from NWS Houston/Galveston (through 4 a.m. CDT Tuesday) and NWS Lake Charles (through 10:15 a.m. CDT Tuesday) covered counties including Harris, Galveston, Chambers, Montgomery, Liberty, Polk, San Jacinto, Tyler, Hardin, Jefferson, and Orange.

The Lake Charles Area Forecast Discussion, issued 2:13 p.m. CDT Monday, put it plainly: "The main story over the next few days will be TD5 moving across the northwest Gulf and toward the southwest Louisiana/southeast Texas coast today and inland on Tuesday." And on the stakes: "Heavy rainfall with the potential for flash flooding of urban areas will be possible around where the center of the low moves." The same discussion notes, "Wind and surge impacts from the disturbance are expected to be minor at this time."

If you live in the footprint, official preparedness guidance lives at Ready.gov (https://www.ready.gov/), and the state emergency management agencies are the Texas Division of Emergency Management (https://tdem.texas.gov/) and Louisiana GOHSEP (https://gohsep.la.gov/).

Advisory vitals, per NHC Advisory 2 (4 p.m. CDT August 31):

Storm page: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at5.shtml

Severe weather: a Marginal day

The Storm Prediction Center's Day 1 outlook, updated 2:28 p.m. CDT Monday and valid through 7 a.m. CDT Tuesday, carries nothing above a Marginal Risk. As the outlook summary reads: "Isolated strong to severe thunderstorms may occur this afternoon into tonight across parts of the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes into western New York, the central Plains, and lower Colorado River Valley into the Great Basin. Severe hail and strong/damaging winds should be the main threats."

The Southwest monsoon, still busy

The Weather Prediction Center's Day 1 excessive rainfall outlook, issued 11:51 a.m. EDT Monday and valid through 8 a.m. EDT Tuesday, includes a Moderate Risk of rainfall exceeding flash flood guidance whose boundary points sit in southern Utah and northern Arizona, with a broader Slight Risk around it. The local offices' own products name the ground: Flood Watches were in effect Monday from NWS Salt Lake City (zones including Southwest Utah, Lower Washington County, and Zion National Park, through 9 p.m. MDT), NWS Flagstaff (Kaibab Plateau, Grand Canyon Country, Marble and Glen Canyons, through midnight MST), NWS Phoenix, NWS Las Vegas, and NWS Grand Junction. Yesterday's lone hail report at Big Water, Utah fell in this same regime.

The rest of the tropics

Two more systems, both far from land, both without coastal watches or warnings as of the 11 a.m. HST Monday advisories:

The Lowell advisory headline reads, "LOWELL FORECAST TO INTENSIFY RAPIDLY OVER THE NEXT DAY OR TWO." Hilo is a name on that map, so the rock will keep reading the advisories.

Otherwise

Quiet, in the way late August is quiet. Heat advisories dotted the map Monday in ordinary summer numbers, below this brief's bar for news. No winter products of consequence, no widespread flood warnings outside the areas above.

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This is a morning summary, not emergency information. For live warnings see https://www.weather.gov/ and your local officials.

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