For a solid week the storm track camped on the southern and central Plains. On June 27th it finally pulled up stakes and moved north — the whole show pivoted into Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming, and it came in as a wind day. Of 108 reports, 78 were wind, a line bulldozing across some of the emptiest country in the Lower 48.
The hardest gust hit 89 mph at Buffalo, Wyoming. North Dakota logged the most reports of anyone — 31, nearly all wind — as the line raked the western counties around Rhame, and South Dakota took 25 more in the same sweep. On ground that open, a 70-to-90 mph wind doesn't need a tornado to do tornado-grade work: it lifts roof panels, folds machine sheds, and lays shelterbelts over.
Montana was the odd one out — while everybody around it blew, Montana caught the hail. Fifteen of its 21 reports were stones, the biggest a 2-inch hit at Biddle out in Powder River country, and South Dakota's corner town of Buffalo took its own 2-incher. Two inches is past the talking stage on a roof — it cracks shingle mats and dents whatever metal it lands on.
This is ranch-and-section-line country, and storm damage out here sits unlooked-at longer than it does in town — the nearest roofer might be two counties off, and a dented metal roof or a lifted ridge doesn't announce itself from the kitchen window. If a hard wind or that hail crossed your place, walk the outbuildings and the house both: panel seams, ridge caps, and the lee-side edges are where 89 mph starts peeling. Catch it before the next line comes through and muddies whose storm did what.
For the crews, the route is the North Dakota–South Dakota wind corridor and the Montana hail pocket around Biddle and the Powder River breaks — spread out, but fresh and well-documented. Montana doesn't crack the Top States for Hail board often, so a day like this stands out. Everybody else, the full state-by-state count is below — find your county and see what came across it.