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

Power outage history

Hughes County South Dakota

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

Worst outage on record Aug 10, 2020 3% of customers out · lasted 10 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% – Median across major outages, from the peak
Longest single outage 10hours Aug 10, 2020, over 1% of customers out
Outage hours on storm days 40% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here
Worst year –
Electricity customers 14,362 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 Hughes'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

Hughes, hours without power per customer

HughesUS median countySouth Dakota average
0 2 4 6 8 ’19 ’20 ’21 ’22 ’23 ’24 ’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
Aug 10, 2020 No storm report 428 3% 10 h – 4.3k
Jul 5, 2022 Thunderstorms 411 3% 9.2 h – 3.7k
Nov 10, 2022 Ice storm 414 3% 8.8 h – 3.6k
May 12, 2022 No storm report 411 3% 5.5 h – 2.3k
Nov 29, 2022 No storm report 414 3% 4.8 h – 2.0k
Aug 28, 2020 Thunderstorms 295 2% 5.8 h – 1.7k
Aug 13, 2020 No storm report 428 3% 3.5 h – 1.5k
Jul 14, 2021 No storm report 366 3% 3.8 h – 1.4k
Apr 2, 2022 No storm report 273 2% 4.5 h – 1.2k
Jul 19, 2024 No storm report 418 3% 3.8 h – 1.2k
Dec 28, 2019 Winter storm 397 3% 2.2 h – 893
Apr 11, 2022 No storm report 411 3% 1.8 h – 719

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

  • No storm on record 60%
  • Thunderstorms 20%
  • Ice storm 13%
  • Winter storm 4.9%
  • Flooding 1.6%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Hughes

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
City of Pierre Municipal – – – 10.9 6.2k
Oahe Electric Coop Inc Cooperative – – – 10.5 2.3k
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 14,362 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 →