Power Out Map
– 0% of Liberty out 0 customers out in Montana

Power outage history

Liberty County Montana

18hours

without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025

2.7× the national median

Worst outage on record Oct 23, 2022 100% of customers out · 90% back in 8.2 hours
Hours without power, average customer per year 18h / yr State average 4.9 h · national median 6.6 h
Major outages a year 19.5 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers
Typical time to restore 90% 4hours Median across major outages, from the peak
Longest single outage 41hours Oct 23, 2022, over 1% of customers out
Outage hours on storm days 40% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here
Worst year 2022 18 hours without power, average customer
Electricity customers 804 ORNL customer model · 2 well-covered years

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 Liberty's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.

20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025
0%100% of customers out

Year by year

Hours in the dark, per customer

2022 was the worst well-recorded year, at 18 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Liberty, hours without power per customer

LibertyUS median countyMontana average
0 5 10 15 20 25 17 ’20 ’21 18 ’22 ’23 ’24 ’25 US 6.6 MT 4.9

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
Oct 23, 2022 Winter storm 804 100% 41 h 8.2 h 5.6k
Aug 1, 2025 No storm report 804 100% 6.0 h 5.8 h 4.3k
Nov 5, 2022 Windstorm 804 100% 5.5 h 6.0 h 3.4k
Dec 17, 2025 Windstorm 804 100% 5.0 h 15 h 3.2k
Jan 13, 2021 No storm report 804 100% 11 h 13 h 2.6k
Sep 14, 2020 No storm report 804 100% 4.8 h 3.8 h 2.3k
Sep 20, 2020 No storm report 804 100% 2.5 h 4.5 h 2.0k
Nov 7, 2020 No storm report 804 100% 9.0 h 12 h 1.8k
Oct 4, 2024 Windstorm 595 74% 4.5 h 1.2 h 1.8k
Feb 1, 2020 No storm report 155 19% 11 h 11 h 1.6k
Nov 23, 2022 No storm report 804 100% 2.0 h 2.0 h 1.6k
Sep 24, 2020 No storm report 804 100% 3.5 h 3.5 h 1.5k

After the peak

How fast the lights come back

Each line is one major outage, from its peak. The amber line is the typical path.

0% 25% 50% 75% 100% peak+24h+48h+72h+96h half back by +4h 90% by +4h

When it happens

The outage clock

Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.

00061218 Jan inside

What was happening

Weather behind the outages

Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Liberty from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

  • No storm on record 60%
  • Windstorm 21%
  • Winter storm 12%
  • Thunderstorms 6.8%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Liberty

As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole Montana territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.

Utility Type Outage min / yr Excl. major storms Outages / yr Residential ¢/kWh Customers
NorthWestern Energy LLC Investor Owned 125 117 1.10 14.4 334k
Sun River Electric Coop, Inc MT 79 79 – 13.3 47k
Hill County Electric Coop, Inc MT – – – 14.0 36k
Marias River Electric Coop Inc MT – – – 8.8 31k
WAPA-- Western Area Power Administration Federal – – – – –

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

Across Montana

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All Montana counties →

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 804 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 →