Power outage history
St. Louis City Missouri
25hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
2nd most of 110 in Missouri 3.8× the national median
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 St. Louis's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.
Year by year
Hours in the dark, per customer
2023 was the worst well-recorded year, at 2.9 days for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.
St. Louis, hours without power per customer
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 30, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 83,685 | 78% | 6.0 d | 3.6 d | 4.3M |
| May 16, 2025 | Tornadoes | 40,596 | 38% | 8.1 d | 6.5 d | 3.3M |
| Jul 10, 2021 | Thunderstorms | 40,765 | 38% | 2.9 d | 2.3 d | 1.2M |
| Aug 12, 2021 | Thunderstorms | 69,559 | 65% | 2.3 d | 44 h | 1.2M |
| Jul 29, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 62,328 | 58% | 2.1 d | 30 h | 993k |
| Aug 10, 2020 | Thunderstorms | 44,212 | 41% | 2.1 d | 39 h | 690k |
| Jul 14, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 25,615 | 24% | 3.0 d | 2.5 d | 629k |
| Jul 13, 2016 | Thunderstorms | 13,923 | 13% | 2.2 d | 45 h | 395k |
| Jun 19, 2021 | No storm report | 17,892 | 17% | 47 h | 41 h | 365k |
| Jun 17, 2022 | Thunderstorms | 18,966 | 18% | 35 h | 31 h | 229k |
| Aug 3, 2022 | No storm report | 13,348 | 12% | 34 h | 22 h | 198k |
| Jul 15, 2020 | No storm report | 22,472 | 21% | 28 h | 21 h | 194k |
| Apr 15, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 19,980 | 19% | 21 h | 17 h | 166k |
| May 26, 2024 | Thunderstorms | 14,527 | 14% | 27 h | 20 h | 139k |
| Jul 26, 2022 | Flooding | 21,020 | 20% | 17 h | 7.8 h | 137k |
| Mar 14, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 6,124 | 6% | 44 h | 36 h | 130k |
| Aug 8, 2021 | No storm report | 7,376 | 7% | 30 h | 34 h | 128k |
| Jul 12, 2023 | No storm report | 10,660 | 10% | 26 h | 25 h | 128k |
| May 19, 2022 | No storm report | 9,945 | 9% | 30 h | 20 h | 96k |
| Mar 31, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 6,695 | 6% | 22 h | 13 h | 73k |
| Apr 14, 2019 | No storm report | 5,533 | 5% | 19 h | 23 h | 72k |
| Apr 18, 2024 | No storm report | 12,824 | 12% | 21 h | 14 h | 69k |
| Nov 4, 2024 | No storm report | 7,506 | 7% | 21 h | 18 h | 69k |
| Jun 28, 2018 | Thunderstorms | 4,168 | 4% | 28 h | – | 55k |
| Aug 23, 2021 | No storm report | 8,136 | 8% | 12 h | 6.8 h | 47k |
| Aug 9, 2020 | No storm report | 6,519 | 6% | 14 h | 14 h | 46k |
| Jul 14, 2018 | Thunderstorms | 3,787 | 4% | 16 h | – | 44k |
| Feb 24, 2016 | No storm report | 4,614 | 4% | 14 h | – | 38k |
| Jun 20, 2020 | No storm report | 4,484 | 4% | 18 h | – | 35k |
| Jul 19, 2020 | Thunderstorms | 9,109 | 9% | 10 h | 6.0 h | 35k |
After the peak
How fast the lights come back
Each line is one major outage, from its peak. The amber line is the typical path.
When it happens
The outage clock
Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.
What was happening
Weather behind the outages
Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for St. Louis from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- Thunderstorms 60%
- Tornadoes 20%
- No storm on record 18%
- Flooding 1.1%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving St. Louis
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole Missouri territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.
| Utility | Type | Outage min / yr | Excl. major storms | Outages / yr | Residential ¢/kWh | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Union Electric Co | Investor Owned | 594 | 119 | 1.18 | 13.3 | 1.1M |
| City of Kirkwood | Municipal | 177 | 138 | 2.00 | 14.5 | 9.5k |
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
- St. Louis (this county) 25 h
- St. Clair, IL 5.3 h
- Madison, IL 4.5 h
- St. Louis 3.8 h
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 106,898 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 →