Storm dumps on Havre

Just a month after weeks of rain created disastrous flooding in the region, another storm dumped estimates of .75 inch to 1 inch of rain on Havre in a short but intense storm Monday, but it appears this deluge did not cause significant damage in the Havre area.

“Not anything that created any big issues … ,” Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson said this morning. “We didn’t get any calls we had to respond to.”

The rain seemed centered on the Havre area, with the National Weather Service recording station at the Havre City-County Airport west of Havre recording .3 inches for the day, and a resident 5 miles east of town recording about a half-inch.

The rain started, off and on, midmorning, but in town about 11:30 the water started pouring.

Heavy rain fell, in waves in different areas, for close to 30 minutes, with precipitation continuing off and on later into the afternoon.

Much of the Havre precipitation fell in the half-hour of intense rain, with the amounts varying in a short distance.

The storm hit while the region still is attempting to recover from flooding due to heavy rainfall from mid-May through the first week of June, leading to the third request by Montana’s governor for a presidential disaster declaration in this area in four years. That declaration still is pending.

Monday’s rain apparently did not create that kind of damage.

The rain filled depressions and created temporary lakes around town, but generally they rapidly drained as the rainfall decreased.

Peterson said he received reports of temporary flooding on parts of 6th Avenue, which is normal when heavy rain fills Bullhook where it runs through town en route to the Milk River.

“Bullhook was running bank-to-bank,” Peterson said.

The storms were spotty through the area, with some spotters reporting nearly large hail and high wind gusts.

Another storm dumped farther west of the Havre airport, with a spotter north of Hingham reporting at 2:15 p.m. .67 inches of rain in a half-hour.

Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch to the west, from Great Falls through western Chouteau County and into Teton County. Another heavy storm broke in the east later last night.

A spotter north of Devon at 4 p.m. reported 1.4 inches of rain in 24 hours, while a spotter in Shelby at 3:42 p.m. reported more than a half-inch of rain in 40 minutes.

Large hail also was reported, with stones 1.75 inches in diameter reported near Fort Benton and Geraldine, and in other parts of the state, with .75-inch hail reported in Blaine County just outside of Hays.

The storm later last night farther east dropped hail from 2-inches to 3-inches in diameter in McCone and Garfield counties and large hail also reported in Fergus and Judith Gap counties as well as other regions.