Furious summer winds whipped through the area Sunday night. Downed trees and limbs knocked power out to many homes in Cody and the Heart Mountain area of Park County.

Garland Light & Power Company crews were kept on the run for a couple of hours Sunday night, trying to restore power. 

Molly Lynn, manager of Garland Light & Power said that most of the outages were west of Ralston and along Road 2AB closer to Cody. 

“We had five different interruptions that affected about 165 customers,” Lynn said, adding that most of the outages lasted only about an hour and a half, with some lasting two hours. 

“There were five different issues. Our guys were spread out. They couldn’t be in five different places at the same time,” Lynn said. 

The gusts were associated with a cold front that passed through between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. 

“Winds were forecasted to be pretty strong behind the front,” said Trevor LaVoie, meteorologist with the Riverton office of the National Weather Service. 

LaVoie said a thunderstorm occurred around the time of the cold front passing through. 

“That helped produce those winds,” he explained. 

Just before 8 p.m. out at the Powell Municipal Airport, winds kicked up to 21 mph with gusts to 28. By 8:35 p.m., the wind had climbed to 51 mph, with gusts up to 68 mph. 

LaVoie said the NWS predicted gusts up to 60 mph, given the weather pattern that was coming through. The service issued a local storm report, which it does whenever winds are expected to be 58 mph or greater — or if there is storm damage reported. 

The storm didn’t produce any significant precipitation for Powell, though southern Montana got some showers. There were also some showers seen on radar south of Powell around 9 p.m.