Posted on 07/01/2026 10:31:48 AM PDT by Red Badger
THIS IS INSANE! 130 MPH winds destroyed windmills in South Dakota this morning. This is very rare. We hardly ever see windmills take this much damage from straight-line damaging winds. But when you push over 110 MPH winds, it becomes a lot easier for the windmills to crumble. Photos via Storm Chaser Jakob McMillin
Accuweather describes set up that will make for severe storms all week long More reports of widespread damage from tornado-force straight line winds below.
Ag Week:
A devastating windstorm ripped through central South Dakota on the morning of June 29.
According to the South Dakota State University Mesonet, at 6:25 a.m. Monday, wind gusts were reported at 131 miles per hour, with the wind speed at 76 miles per hour. Rainfall totaled 1.64 inches.
Videos of the aftermath in Highmore show extensive damage to the community. Destroyed buildings and grain bins and standing water could be seen throughout a large section of the town following the storm.
Grain bins in Highmore, S. D.
(Excerpt) Read more at thinc.blog ...
I guess you have to hit the ‘sweet spot’.
And if those fiberglass blades are damaged, consider that land dead. Because of all of those glass fibers getting into the soil. You can’t run cows on it and you can’t grow crops impregnated with glass fibers.
What is “D”?
Maybe they should be renamed gentle breeze mills.
THE BIRDS APPROVE!
Whoever thought of those “balloons” must be making a fortune off of them.
Bummer ... those silos and barns were useful structures.
What about the Mamas and the Papas? or Steppen Wolf?........
We experienced driving in one, in 2020 or 2021… a tree fell right in front of our car. If we had been a few seconds sooner it would’ve landed on top of us. We were actually a block from home. Scary stuff.
Peter Sinclair is a videographer specializing in issues of Climate Change and renewable energy solutions. Mr. Sinclair produces the video series “This is Not Cool”, for Yale Climate Connections. He has produced more than a hundred videos in the series “Climate Denial Crock of the Week”, a sharply satirical and scientifically rigorous response to the many bits of climate science misinformation, and disinformation, often seen on the internet – which Mr. Sinclair calls the “Climate Crocks – something Rush Limbaugh can say in 10 seconds that takes an honest scientist an hour to unpack”.Here's a different source:
Just sayin'.
when you need it the most, renewable energy WON’T be there for you.
“How does one even BEGIN with a demo job like that??”
If a union is doing the work .. . a coffee break!
Good details. Yes, they “uniformly fell” in the same direction,failing at similar points in each turbine. Design criteria set too low for the environment, no margins. But. “Government Approved” to send our tax dollars to the democrat party liners and their donors in the anti-Western enviro agenda complex!
The ones left standing were stretched to their 99% limit too.
Beautiful! This made my day.
What did the winds do to coal-fired power plants I wonder?
I guess it’s too much to ask for wind turbines to operate on windy days.
So who really foots the bill for the destroyed wind generator? Are they insured? If so, who is the insurer? It might pay to know.
I would also like to know if they do NOT restore thw windmill, does the ground go back to farmland? If they do a complete job of that, there would be more work than just hauling away the broken windmill.
The force goes as the square of the speed. The energy (power) goes as the force times the speed again so you can say the energy goes as the cube of the wind speed.
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