Whining About Weather - How Windy Is Great Falls, MT?

Living in cental Montana, in Great Falls and anywhere along the Rocky Mountain front, the conversation of the weather and the wind will be a topic that will be talked about. Many of those times, Great Falls seems to blow right into the top of the list of the windiest places to live in Montana. But just how windy is the Electric City?

Depending On Population, Great Falls Definitely Is Among the Highest

Data is available from the NOAA that lists each of the cities with the highest wind rates across the United States. Using population as a basis, with a minimum of 50,000 residents, Great Falls stacks up pretty well across the country, even coming in ahead of the city dubbed "The Windy City", Chicago. That city actually had trouble getting into the top 50 of the windiest cities.

Average Speeds and The Rankings of Cities Across America

For the research, NOAA used the average speeds between the years of 1984 through 2020. In Montana, Great Falls definitely leads the way, averaging 11.5 miles per hour through the years. Our windiest times come in January and December, probably due to the chinook winds that come off the Rocky Mountains. Those winds will jump up in average to over 14 miles per hour.

That average is good for number 7 on the list across America. The top 5 windiest areas are as follows: