High winds are a recognized and costly source of irrigation pivot losses: North Dakota State University notes that high winds can flip entire irrigation pivots, while Nebraska Extension reports that storm-damaged irrigation pivots cause high-dollar losses nearly every year and have contributed to rising irrigation pivot insurance costs.
With over 55,000 irrigation pivots in Nebraska alone, the scale of individual severe-weather events can be extraordinary. A 2004 severe-weather outbreak damaged or destroyed more than 250 irrigation pivots in south-central Nebraska, according to NOAA records, while a 2014 Nebraska storm reportedly took down 260 irrigation pivots in a single event, with estimates that as many as 500 irrigation pivots were down across the greater Minden area during the broader period of severe weather.
Wind and storm damage can destroy hundreds of machines—representing millions of dollars in replacement costs—in a single regional weather event, creating substantial recurring exposure for farmers, equipment manufacturers, dealers, and insurers.
Nebraska Extension is currently studying factors that may reduce this exposure—including which direction an irrigation pivot should be parked and whether a machine is less likely to be damaged while irrigating—precisely the variables that an intelligent, UltraFast™ Constant Move irrigation pivot could autonomously control.