A blast of wind hit 148 mph on Monarch Pass Thursday, the highest gust recorded in Colorado by the National Weather Service.

The gust, out of the west, was recorded at 7:36 p.m.

Thunder and light snow accompanied the wicked wind, which included less volatile gusts of 98 and 62 mph in the area after 7 p.m. that night.

Thursday’s Monarch Pass blast bests a previous gust of 147 mph on Jan. 25, 1971, recorded at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder.

A gust of 201 mph was recorded on Longs Peak in the winter of 1981, during a special one-year project sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Nature Association.

Wind measurements in Colorado are deemed “unofficial” by the state climatologist, said Kyle Mozley, a meteorologist with NWS in Pueblo.

The weather sensor at the Monarch Pass station stopped recording data later Thursday night when ” heating elements stop performing,” the weather service said Friday.

Although there was a loss of data, the mishap did not result in “a false spiking up of recorded wind gusts.”

The Colorado Division of Aeronautics and the NWS Pueblo agreed that the record 148 mph wind gust above Monarch Pass was “true.”

The Monarch Pass automated weather station sits above the top of U.S. Highway 50, east of the roadway atop a mountainside at 12,031-feet elevation.

Go to https://www.codot.gov/programs/aeronautics/co_awos for information on 12 automated weather sites in the Colorado high country.

Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822, knicholson@denverpost.com or @kierannicholson