Power outage history
Rio Blanco County Colorado
1.6hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
75% below the national median
Every day since 2015
Eleven years, one night at a time
Each cell is a day. The brighter it is, the larger the share of Rio Blanco's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.
Year by year
Hours in the dark, per customer
2020 was the worst well-recorded year, at 1.6 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.
Rio Blanco, hours without power per customer
The record
The biggest outages since 2015
Ranked by customer-hours lost: customers out multiplied by how long they stayed out. Times are local.
| Began | Storm | Peak out | Share | Lasted | 90% restored | Customer-hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 29, 2020 | No storm report | 202 | 4% | 5.2 h | – | 1.1k |
| Aug 26, 2020 | Wildfire | 466 | 8% | 48 min | 48 min | 350 |
| Jun 30, 2020 | No storm report | 200 | 4% | 1.8 h | – | 350 |
| Apr 12, 2020 | Winter storm | 107 | 2% | 2.5 h | – | 268 |
| Jun 6, 2020 | Wildfire | 62 | 1% | 2.2 h | – | 140 |
| Jul 23, 2020 | Wildfire | 60 | 1% | 1.2 h | – | 75 |
| Oct 29, 2019 | Winter storm | 56 | 1% | 30 min | – | 28 |
When it happens
The outage clock
Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.
What was happening
Weather behind the outages
Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Rio Blanco from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- No storm on record 62%
- Wildfire 25%
- Winter storm 13%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving Rio Blanco
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole Colorado territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.
| Utility | Type | Outage min / yr | Excl. major storms | Outages / yr | Residential ¢/kWh | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Service Co of Colorado | Investor Owned | 360 | 149 | 1.58 | 15.9 | 1.4M |
| Yampa Valley Electric Assn Inc | Cooperative | 272 | 189 | 2.00 | 17.0 | 24k |
| White River Electric Assn, Inc | Cooperative | 216 | 105 | 1.57 | 14.7 | 2.6k |
| Moon Lake Electric Assn Inc | Cooperative | 81 | 81 | 0.94 | 9.7 | 1.5k |
| WAPA-- Western Area Power Administration | Federal | – | – | – | – | – |
| Deseret Generation & Tran Coop | UT | – | – | – | – | – |
EIA Form 861, latest year each utility reported. Outage minutes are SAIDI, the yearly minutes the average customer goes without power; outages a year are SAIFI.
Next door
Neighbouring counties
- Uintah, UT 3.3 h
- Routt 3.2 h
- Garfield 2.9 h
- Moffat 2.7 h
- Rio Blanco (this county) 1.6 h
About these numbers
Notes
Outages come from the EAGLE-I record of utility outage maps collected every 15 minutes by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hours without power are customer-hours divided by the county's 5,566 electricity customers. Averages use well-covered years from 2018. Outages shorter than 15 minutes, and utilities that publish no outage map, are not in the record, so these figures understate the total. How every number is made →