Faulk County South Dakota

The outage record here is too thin for a reliable yearly average. Raw events are listed below.

Worst outage on record Nov 10, 2022 75% of customers out · 90% back in 6.5 hours

Hours without power, average customer per year –h / yr State average 4.8 h · national median 6.6 h

Major outages a year – 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 24hours May 31, 2020, over 1% of customers out

Outage hours on storm days 37% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here

Worst year –

Electricity customers 1,168 ORNL customer model · 0 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 Faulk'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

Faulk, hours without power per customer

FaulkUS median countySouth Dakota average

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 10, 2022	Ice storm	879	75%	8.5 h	6.5 h	6.2k
May 31, 2020	No storm report	159	14%	24 h	1.0 h	3.5k
Jul 11, 2022	No storm report	870	74%	3.8 h	3.8 h	3.3k
Apr 23, 2022	Thunderstorms	906	78%	4.2 h	11 h	3.1k
Jul 13, 2020	No storm report	603	52%	5.0 h	1.5 h	2.2k
May 6, 2025	No storm report	428	37%	4.0 h	5.0 h	1.7k
Oct 9, 2021	No storm report	806	69%	2.0 h	2.0 h	1.6k
Aug 5, 2022	Thunderstorms	870	74%	1.8 h	2.8 h	1.5k
Jan 4, 2023	No storm report	718	61%	2.0 h	2.0 h	1.4k
Apr 22, 2020	No storm report	793	68%	2.2 h	1.5 h	1.4k
Aug 7, 2021	No storm report	584	50%	2.5 h	2.5 h	1.3k
Jun 24, 2025	No storm report	447	38%	5.5 h	3.8 h	1.1k
Dec 16, 2022	Winter storm	52	4%	16 h	–	820
Jul 17, 2020	No storm report	701	60%	1.2 h	1.2 h	789
Nov 17, 2022	No storm report	156	13%	3.5 h	3.5 h	546
Dec 17, 2022	Winter storm	42	4%	9.5 h	–	369
Oct 19, 2023	No storm report	157	13%	2.2 h	2.2 h	353
Nov 14, 2022	No storm report	174	15%	1.8 h	1.8 h	291
Dec 15, 2022	Winter storm	116	10%	5.5 h	1.8 h	270
Jun 13, 2022	Windstorm	48	4%	6.8 h	–	240
Jul 5, 2020	No storm report	129	11%	1.8 h	1.8 h	226
Feb 26, 2020	No storm report	30	3%	7.0 h	–	210
Oct 15, 2021	No storm report	60	5%	3.2 h	3.2 h	195
Apr 8, 2021	No storm report	46	4%	4.0 h	–	184
Sep 12, 2018	No storm report	41	4%	5.0 h	–	180
Mar 7, 2023	Winter storm	47	4%	3.8 h	–	176
May 16, 2020	No storm report	42	4%	4.0 h	–	168
Nov 10, 2022	Ice storm	112	10%	1.8 h	12 h	153
Feb 3, 2021	No storm report	70	6%	6.2 h	6.5 h	145
Dec 25, 2024	No storm report	35	3%	3.8 h	–	131

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.

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 Faulk from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

No storm on record 63%
Ice storm 18%
Thunderstorms 13%
Winter storm 4.7%
Windstorm 0.8%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Faulk

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
NorthWestern Energy	Investor Owned	120	82	1.14	13.3	52k
FEM Electric Assn, Inc	SD	87	87	1.20	12.1	39k
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
Dakota Energy Coop Inc	Cooperative	–	–	–	16.3	3.2k

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

Spink 3.3 h
Brown 2.3 h
Faulk (this county) – h

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 1,168 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 →