Power Outages in Minnesota by City

Power outage record for Minnesota

• 2024: Minnesota electric customers averaged 1.25 outages and 220 minutes (3.7 hours) without power. Average across all reporting US utilities: 611 minutes. That makes Minnesota 15th of 50 states (1 = fewest outage minutes).
• Storm days vs. ordinary days: leaving out major event days, the figure drops to 92 minutes (US 126). About 58% of the year's outage time came on a handful of severe days.
• Six-year record: the worst year was 2022 (274 minutes), the best 2021 (121). 2024 was well above the 2019–2023 average of 160 minutes.
• Largest utilities: Northern States Power Co - Minnesota, 1,361,168 customers, 309 minutes; Connexus Energy, 146,552 customers, 181 minutes; ALLETE, Inc., 138,546 customers, 120 minutes.
• Spread between utilities: among 13 utilities with 25,000+ customers, Dakota Electric Association had the least outage time (25 minutes) and Lake Country Power the most (373 minutes). Source: EIA Form 861 reliability data, 2019–2024
• Storm record since 2015: 20,261 NOAA storm reports in Minnesota, led by thunderstorm wind 4,561, hail 4,474, extreme cold/wind chill 1,895. Power outages are named in 142 storm episodes. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database
• July 23, 2022, Olmsted (thunderstorm wind): “Power poles were snapped, creating several power outages across the city that affected more than 3,500 customers.” Source: NOAA Storm Events Database
• July 5, 2016, Olmsted (thunderstorm wind): “A total of 2700 customers throughout the city of Rochester were without power.” Source: NOAA Storm Events Database
• June 4, 2019, Olmsted (thunderstorm wind): “At one point, up to 2,000 customers were without power.” Source: NOAA Storm Events Database

Checked September 2026.