Power Out Map
– 0% of Brown out 0 customers out in South Dakota

Power outage history

Brown County South Dakota

2.3hours

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

29th most of 32 in South Dakota 65% below the national median

Worst outage on record Jul 3, 2022 32% of customers out · 90% back in 1.0 hours
Hours without power, average customer per year 2.3h / yr State average 4.8 h · national median 6.6 h
Major outages a year 1.8 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers
Typical time to restore 90% 2hours Median across major outages, from the peak
Longest single outage 38hours Nov 10, 2022, over 1% of customers out
Outage hours on storm days 79% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here
Worst year 2022 5.5 hours without power, average customer
Electricity customers 19,238 ORNL customer model · 6 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 Brown'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 5.5 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Brown, hours without power per customer

BrownUS median countySouth Dakota average
0 2 4 6 8 ’19 1.7 ’20 1.1 ’21 5.5 ’22 2.5 ’23 1.3 ’24 1.9 ’25 US 6.6 SD 4.8

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
Jul 3, 2022 Flooding 6,204 32% 5.5 h 1.0 h 33k
Nov 10, 2022 Ice storm 1,253 7% 38 h 32 h 20k
Jul 6, 2022 Flooding 5,328 28% 2.5 h 2.2 h 12k
Jun 18, 2024 Thunderstorms 2,058 11% 9.2 h 2.8 h 11k
Sep 14, 2023 No storm report 1,570 8% 6.5 h 6.5 h 10k
Aug 29, 2023 Flooding 6,685 35% 1.5 h 48 min 8.8k
Feb 16, 2021 Winter storm 3,279 17% 3.0 h 2.0 h 6.6k
Sep 16, 2020 Flooding 3,190 17% 2.0 h 1.2 h 5.7k
Nov 25, 2025 Winter storm 1,573 8% 5.8 h 2.5 h 5.4k
May 23, 2023 Flooding 3,268 17% 2.5 h 2.0 h 5.0k
Oct 14, 2020 No storm report 1,621 8% 5.2 h 5.2 h 4.9k
May 1, 2020 Flooding 2,362 12% 4.2 h 3.5 h 4.7k

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 +2h 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 Brown from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

  • Flooding 50%
  • No storm on record 21%
  • Thunderstorms 9.8%
  • Ice storm 9.7%
  • Winter storm 5.6%
  • Windstorm 3.4%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Brown

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

Utility Type Outage min / yr Excl. major storms Outages / yr Residential ¢/kWh Customers
Lake Region Electric Assn, Inc SD – – – 12.0 62k
NorthWestern Energy Investor Owned 120 82 1.14 13.3 52k
City of Groton SD – – – – 11k
Montana-Dakota Utilities Co Investor Owned 212 206 2.62 13.0 6.3k
Northern Electric Coop, Inc Cooperative 73 65 0.74 11.4 5.8k
City of Hecla SD – – – – 2.5k
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 South Dakota

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All South Dakota 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 19,238 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 →