Live from the National Weather Service

Idaho Storm Alerts

Active National Weather Service hail, wind, thunderstorm, tornado, tropical and winter storm alerts covering Idaho, with the counties each one names and the office that issued it — plus what the state’s severe-weather season looks like and how each of these events actually damages a roof.

Below that, in its own lane, the smoke and fire family: fire weather, dense smoke, air quality, blowing dust and volcanic ashfall.

0 active alerts · read from the National Weather Service at Aug 26, 1:54 AM EDT · refreshed every 10 minutes

This page is informational and is not a safety resource. It exists to show roofing professionals where storm damage has been reported, and it is refreshed on a ten-minute cycle, so it can lag the Weather Service.

During an active weather event, the authority is weather.gov and your local emergency management agency. Follow them, not this page.

Active storm alerts in Idaho

Reproduced exactly as the National Weather Service issued them. Alerts frequently cross state lines, so a county list may name counties in a neighbouring state. Smoke and fire alerts are reported separately, in their own lane below.

No active alerts

The National Weather Service has no active hail, wind, thunderstorm, tornado, tropical or winter storm alerts covering Idaho as of this refresh. This is the normal state most days, and this page fills itself the moment NWS issues something.

Radar over Idaho

Straight from radar.weather.gov and regenerated by NOAA roughly every two minutes.

National Weather Service radar for the Pacific Northwest, covering Washington, Oregon and Idaho. — Where precipitation is falling over Idaho right now. The National Weather Service publishes these mosaics by region rather than by state, so the frame runs past the state line and neighbouring states are visible in it. Radar shows precipitation, not damage — a return over a county is not evidence that any particular building was hit.
Radar imagery: the National Weather Service. Served directly from radar.weather.gov, a free US Government service, and regenerated by NOAA roughly every two minutes — your browser picks up new frames on its own. This site does not process, re-colour or re-time the imagery; it is the Weather Service’s own mosaic, unmodified. weather.gov
This radar is informational and is not a safety resource. During an active weather event, the authority is weather.gov and your local emergency management agency. Follow them, not this page.

Smoke & fire lane

Smoke & fire alerts in Idaho

The National Weather Service issues a separate family of alerts for fire weather, dense smoke, air quality, blowing dust and volcanic ashfall. This lane reports that family for Idaho, kept apart from the storm alerts above because the two answer different questions.

Wildfire smoke is what drives smoke-damage losses, and it reaches a building through the same vents that keep an attic dry — which is why it belongs on a roofing page at all. Alerts describing particulate already in the air are listed ahead of fire-weather forecasts; that ordering is this lane’s own and is not a Weather Service ranking.

2 active smoke or fire alerts · read from the National Weather Service at Aug 26, 1:54 AM EDT · refreshed every 10 minutes

Red Flag Warning

Fire weatherSevereUrgencyExpectedCertaintyLikely

Issued by NWS Missoula MT

In effect from Aug 26, 12:00 PM local · until Aug 26, 8:00 PM local

Counties named in this alert

Palouse/Nezperce Reservation/Hells Canyon Region

Read the full National Weather Service text

NWS headline

Red Flag Warning issued August 25 at 1:07PM MDT until August 26 at 8:00PM MDT by NWS Missoula MT

NWS description

...RED FLAG WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM TO 7 PM PDT WEDNESDAY DUE TO WIND AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY FOR PALOUSE/HELLS CANYON... The National Weather Service in Missoula MT has issued a Red Flag Warning. * AFFECTED AREA...Fire Weather Zone 102. The drier and windier areas will be locations along and south of Highway 12. * TIMING...From 11 AM to 7 PM PDT Wednesday. * WINDS...Southwest winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts 30 to 35 mph. * RELATIVE HUMIDITY...Relative Humidity between 10 to 15 percent. * IMPACTS...Any fires that develop will spread rapidly. Outdoor burning is not recommended.

NWS instructions

Please advise the appropriate officials or fire crews in the field of this Red Flag Warning.

View this alert on weather.gov

Fire Weather Watch

Fire weatherSevereUrgencyFutureCertaintyPossible

Issued by NWS Boise ID

In effect from Aug 27, 12:00 PM local · until Aug 27, 9:00 PM local

Counties named in this alert

Owyhee Mountains
Burns BLM
Steens Mountain
Southern Grasslands

Read the full National Weather Service text

NWS headline

Fire Weather Watch issued August 25 at 1:37PM MDT until August 27 at 9:00PM MDT by NWS Boise ID

NWS description

The National Weather Service in Boise has issued a Fire Weather Watch for winds and low relative humidities, which is in effect from Thursday afternoon through Thursday evening. * AFFECTED AREA...In Idaho, Fire Weather Zone 423 Owyhee Mountains. In Oregon, Fire Weather Zones 670 Burns BLM, 671 Steens Mountain and 672 Southern Grasslands. * TIMING...From Thursday afternoon through Thursday evening. * WINDS...Southwest 10 to 25 mph with gusts up to 40 mph. * RELATIVE HUMIDITY...9 to 19 percent. * TEMPERATURES...85 to 93 degrees. * IMPACTS...Any fire that develops will catch and spread quickly. Outdoor burning is not recommended.

NWS instructions

A Fire Weather Watch means that critical fire weather conditions are possible. Listen for later forecasts and possible Red Flag Warnings.

View this alert on weather.gov

The 12 alert types this lane reports

Every one is a National Weather Service product and is listed under the name the Weather Service gives it. Grouping them into families is ours; the names are not.

Fire weather: Fire WarningExtreme Fire DangerRed Flag WarningFire Weather Watch
Dense smoke: Dense Smoke Advisory
Air quality: Air Quality Alert
Blowing dust: Blowing Dust WarningDust Storm WarningBlowing Dust AdvisoryDust Advisory
Volcanic ashfall: Ashfall WarningAshfall Advisory

The Weather Service defines each of these products and this site does not attempt to. What any one of them means, and the criteria an office issues it under, are at weather.gov.

This lane is informational and is not a safety resource. It reports which National Weather Service smoke and fire alerts are active and where, on a ten-minute refresh cycle, so it can lag the Weather Service.

During an active weather event, the authority is weather.gov and your local emergency management agency. Follow them, not this page.

Smoke exposure and air quality are health matters, and this page does not address them. It does not tell you whether it is safe to be outdoors or to work, what an air quality index number means for you or for anyone in your household, or what respiratory protection to use. Those questions belong with a clinician and with the agency that issued the alert. The federal air-quality authority is airnow.gov.

What smoke does to a roof assembly

An active alert is a record of conditions, not a finding about any building. These are the standing references on the building-assembly side of a smoke or fire loss.

Smoke odor in roof decking and attic insulationWhy odour outlives the visible repairs — deposition into bare decking and framing, insulation acting as a reservoir, and the difference between cleaning, sealing and removing. The article that covers wildfire smoke reaching an attic through the vents, with the roof itself untouched.Fire damage to a roof assemblyDirect flame against radiant heat, shingle distortion and mat delamination, charred sheathing and loss of section, and why a roof that looks intact from the ground can still be condemned.Roof replacement after a fireHow the repair-or-replace decision is built on a fire loss: partial against full deck replacement, the boundary between charred and heat-affected wood, matching, and the code upgrades a repair can trigger.Ventilation holes and fire department roof damageFire crews cut the roof on purpose. What vertical ventilation is for, how tactical damage is separated from fire damage in a scope, and what an opened deck needs in the meantime.Smoke Mitigation Network — directory listingLaboratory smoke damage testing and documentation, listed under Restoration & Mitigation → Smoke Damage Testing & Assessment. Whether a building is contaminated is established by sampling rather than by looking at it. The listing discloses that it shares ownership with this directory.

Severe weather season in Idaho

Peak season

November–March for winter, May–August for thunderstorms

Idaho’s dominant roofing concern is winter loading, with mountain and valley snowfall producing sustained weight and uneven drifting. Spring and summer bring thunderstorms capable of damaging outflow wind and occasional hail, generally as isolated events rather than as widespread outbreaks. Wind advisories through the Snake River Plain are a recurring non-convective source of uplift.

Seasons describe a pattern, not a schedule. The National Weather Service issues these products year-round, and the live list above is the only authority on what is actually running in Idaho right now.

What NOAA has recorded in Idaho

The archived record, not the live feed. Severe weather logged by the National Centers for Environmental Information over the covered years, split into the events NOAA keys to a county and the events it keys to a forecast zone.

Between 2016 and 2026, NOAA recorded 1,426 county-level severe-weather events across Idaho: 1,181 thunderstorm wind events, 225 hail reports and 20 tornadoes. Of the 225 hail reports carrying a measured size, 214 were 1.00 in across or larger.

A further 2,383 events over the same period were recorded against National Weather Service forecast zones rather than counties — 1,385 heavy snow events, 490 winter storms, 436 high wind events, 55 strong wind events and 13 blizzards. A forecast zone is not a county: it can span several or subdivide one, so these are reported here at state level and appear in no county total on this site.

County-keyed events

1,426

2016–2026

Zone-keyed events

2,383

statewide, not county-attributable

Hail 1.00 in or larger

214

of 225 sized hail reports

Tornadoes

in the county record

Counties with the heaviest record

Ranked by the number of county-keyed events NOAA recorded, 2016–2026. 44 of Idaho’s counties carry a record in this dataset.

Butte County150largest hail 1.00 in (Quarter - Half Dollar) · peak gust 70 kt (about 81 mph)
Jefferson County130largest hail 1.25 in (Quarter - Half Dollar) · peak gust 63 kt (about 72 mph)
Bonneville County91largest hail 2.00 in (Baseball) · peak gust 64 kt (about 74 mph)
Bingham County86largest hail 1.50 in (Ping Pong Ball) · peak gust 64 kt (about 74 mph)
Cassia County79largest hail 1.75 in (Golf Ball) · peak gust 70 kt (about 81 mph)
Fremont County70largest hail 1.50 in (Ping Pong Ball) · peak gust 63 kt (about 72 mph)
Bannock County69largest hail 1.50 in (Ping Pong Ball) · peak gust 72 kt (about 83 mph)
Minidoka County54largest hail 1.75 in (Golf Ball) · peak gust 68 kt (about 78 mph)

Preliminary — not yet in the permanent archive

40 further preliminary storm reports have been filed against Idaho counties since June 1, 2026. They are counted separately from every archived figure above and are not added to any of them.

Preliminary reports covering 2026-05-31 onward come from National Weather Service storm reports filed as events occur. They have not yet been through the quality-control review that produces the permanent archive, and individual reports may later be revised, combined or withdrawn.

County figures and state figures. County figures count events NOAA recorded against a county (hail, thunderstorm wind and tornadoes). High wind, winter storms, ice storms, blizzards, heavy snow, hurricanes and tropical storms are recorded against National Weather Service forecast zones rather than counties, so they are reported at state level instead. Counts reflect events that were observed and reported.

Source. Archived figures come from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information Storm Events Database, covering 2016 through May 31, 2026. Reports after that date come from NOAA Storm Prediction Center preliminary storm reports. Both are US Government works in the public domain. This is a record of past weather; the live alert list at the top of this page is the only authority on what is running in Idaho now.

What these storms do to a roof

The damage mechanisms that matter in Idaho, in the order they generate work here.

Hail

Hail damages an asphalt shingle in two ways at once. The impact knocks granules off the surface, and it can bruise or fracture the asphalt mat underneath without breaking the surface open. Granules are what shield the asphalt from ultraviolet light, so a roof that has lost them ages faster from that point on. A fractured mat is the reason hail damage is often described as latent: the roof may not leak the week of the storm, and the failure shows up later. On metal panels and metal accessories, hail leaves dents, which raises the separate question of whether the damage is cosmetic or has actually compromised the panel or its coating.

Straight-line wind

Wind damage on a shingle roof usually starts as a broken seal rather than a missing shingle. Uplift pressure is highest at the edges — rakes, eaves, ridges and hips — and along any line where the roof plane changes, so that is where tabs lift and the factory sealant strip lets go first. Once the seal is broken, a shingle that still looks fine from the ground is no longer bonded to the course below it and every later wind event works on the same spot. Wind also drives debris, and impact damage from a branch or from another roof’s material is a separate mechanism from uplift.

Snow load and winter storms

Winter loads a roof rather than striking it. Accumulated snow is a sustained weight on the structure, and drifting means the load is rarely spread evenly — it piles against ridges, dormers, valleys and the low side of any change in roof height. Melt-and-refreeze adds the second mechanism: heat escaping through the roof melts snow that then refreezes at the cold eave, and the resulting ice can back water up under the covering, which sheds water flowing downhill but not water standing still.

Why the storm date matters

Property insurance works from a date of loss — a specific storm on a specific day over a specific area, not a general observation that a roof looks worn. That is why the county list and the effective and expiry times on each alert above are the useful part of this page: they are the National Weather Service’s own record that a given event covered a given county at a given time.

It also matters because hail damage is frequently latent. A fractured shingle mat can take a long time to become a leak, so the gap between the storm and the discovery can be considerable — and by then, establishing which storm did it is a records question rather than an observation. An alert naming a county is not evidence that any particular building was damaged; it is evidence of what the weather was doing over that county, which is where an assessment starts rather than where it ends.

Next steps in Idaho

Roofing contractors in IdahoBrowse the Idaho directory by city and county.Idaho licensing rulesWhether roofers must be licensed here, which board issues it, and the bond and insurance rules.Storm damage roof repair guideHow hail and wind damage is identified, documented and repaired.National storm centerActive alerts across all 50 states and DC, busiest first.

Source: the National Weather Service. Every alert on this page comes from the NWS public alerts feed at api.weather.gov, a free US Government service, and is reproduced as the issuing office wrote it. The office that issued each alert is named on the alert itself.

This site does not edit, summarise or re-grade Weather Service text. Alerts are filtered into two separate lists — the event types that affect roofs, and the smoke, fire and airborne-particulate family — and each list is sorted. Nothing else is changed, and no alert is moved between the two lists to suit a heading.

weather.gov