Ferocious straight-line winds exceeding 130 mph ripped through central South Dakota early Monday morning, unleashing severe damage on one of the state’s pioneering wind energy facilities.
The intense gusts, recorded at 131 mph near Holabird in Hyde County around 6:15 a.m. local time, struck with a force rivaling some tornadoes, though officials confirmed they were produced by a severe thunderstorm rather than rotating winds.
The storm devastated the South Dakota Wind Energy Center, also known as the Highmore Wind Farm, located about 10 miles south of Highmore, leaving a trail of collapsed and mangled turbines across the prairie landscape.
Storm chaser Jakob McMillin captured dramatic images of the destruction in a widely circulated post on X, formerly Twitter. His documentation revealed multiple turbine towers either fully toppled or heavily compromised, with shattered blades and twisted structural debris strewn across the open terrain. In follow-up comments, McMillin reported observing “over 20” turbines destroyed or critically damaged at the site.
The affected wind farm, South Dakota’s first major installation when it came online in 2003, consists of 27 turbines manufactured by GE Vernova, each rated at 1.5 MW, for a total nameplate capacity of 40.5 MW.
It is owned and operated by NextEra Energy Resources and supplies power to Basin Electric Power Cooperative. Visual evidence from the scene showed at least seven towers visibly bent or felled by the extreme winds, highlighting the vulnerability of even robust infrastructure when confronted by such rare meteorological intensity.
Meteorological accounts described the event as highly unusual. As one widely shared update noted, “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.”
The storm’s macrobursts delivered sustained destructive power across the region, impacting not only the wind facility but surrounding agricultural structures as well. No immediate reports of injuries were highlighted in initial coverage, though the scale of physical damage to the turbines underscores the challenges faced by renewable energy operations in volatile weather zones.
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