News you can use
News you can use
After a frigid blast of winter air froze the Hi-Line from Christmas through the first part of January, a blast of spring-like warmth settled in, letting people switch from winter parkas to light jackets in a matter of days.
Children were out playing in deep snow while it lasted through temperatures in the 30s and 40s, a not-uncommon switch in the area although in past decades the warmth rarely has lasted a day.
It is part of a topsy-turvy year of winter weather in the area, running from a record-setting snowstorm to nearly bone-dry periods, and alternating with bitter cold and the recent warm snap
Weather forecasters say that warmth will be ending this week with the high-pressure ridge keeping cold air out diminishing, although the return of Old Man Winter likely won't be as extreme as the blast of cold and snow from Christmas on.
"You will be falling back toward normal," National Weather Service Meteorologist Cody Moldan said, adding that the temperatures will likely drop into the 20s Friday through Sunday then should hit near 40 Monday.
"That will be the last warm day for a while," he said. " ... It's going to feel like winter again."
Warm air over the divide
Warm weather alternating with bitter cold is not uncommon in Montana, with chinook winds often bringing a rapid blast of heat.
Chinook is a name attributed by some sources to a Native word meaning "snow eater," also the name of a Native American tribe from the Columbia River region in Oregon and Washington and the name of a kind of salmon. Durring a chinook warm, wet air coming off the Pacific Ocean blows over the Rocky Mountains west of the Continental Divide until it pushes over the divide.
Accuweather's website says as the air drops from the divide onto the plains east of the divide, it becomes extremely dry and much warmer. As the warm air pushes out from the mountains, temperatures can skyrocket as much as 60 or 70 degrees.
Chinooks can bring temperatures of minus 20 or minus 30 to 40-above zero in a matter of minutes - causing some problems for drivers as moving vehicles hitting the temperature change can have their windshields suddenly encrusted in frost and as it brings frost out on pavement.
But, typically, the warmth is short-lived. Mordan said if a large amount of cold air remains to the north, when the wind dies down the cold air tends to "slosh" back in.
High pressure keeps the warm in north-central Montana
But the area has seen a long stretch of warm, which actually is not a chinook.
Moldan said one day was warmed by an actual chinook wind, Jan. 18, when Havre hit 43 above and Great Falls hit 50 degrees.
"That was a chinook," he said.
The warm wind brought enough change that, coupled with a high pressure ridge developing in the area, the region continued to stay warm
"(The chinook) scoured out the cold air," Moldan said.
The temperatures in the area recently actually have not been that much above normal, except for a few days, but were a major change from the weeks before - which were radically different than the weeks prior to that.
A tumultuous winter
The winter season started in the fall, with a record-setting snowstorm Oct. 2-3 breaking trees and putting power out in four counties, for up to 10 days for some users.
The Weather Channel reported that the storm dropped up to 30 inches on parts of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation in Montana; 15.8 inches near Havre, a new October two-day record at the recording station at the Havre City-County Airport with 13 inches, breaking a record set in 1898. Zortman set a new one-day record with 14 inches reported falling.
Moldan said the rest of October saw virtually no precipitation.
"Basically, that storm was all your moisture for the whole month," he said.
November saw a small amount of snow fall at first - 1.5 inches of snow Nov. 2 and 2 inches Nov. 3 - and a trace later on, but generally was bone dry, Moldan said.
And December started out the same but changed with a vengeance mid-month.
The region saw a heavy snowstorm Dec. 18, and then the cold set in.
Christmas Day had a low of minus 10 with high of 3 below zero, Dec. 26 hit a low of minus 26 and New Year's Day set a new record with a low of 32 below zero.
Temperatures never made it warmer than zero degrees from Christmas Day until Jan. 2, when Havre saw a high of 19 - and a low of minus 18.
The highs then stayed in the teens and 20s for a week, then seesawed back and forth, with a few days in the 20s or even 40s then back into below-zero temperatures then back up again.
The pattern that set in Jan. 18 brought the 43-degree high that day - not even close to the record high of 61 degrees set in 1900, but far above the record low of minus 36 set in 1883 - and has since settled into temperatures generally in the low to upper 30s.
Moldan said those temperatures are not terribly unusual, though Wednesday's high for Havre at 42 degrees again was considerably higher than the norm. The normal high for this time of year is 29 degrees, and many recent highs were just a few degrees warmer than that.
But the weather this weekend and next, barring Monday and Tuesday's warmer highs, should be more like a normal winter, Moldan said. He said temperatures will be below normal, though not by extremes, and some snow is expected, although no major storms are predicted in the near future.
But what Montana weather will bring in the weeks following is always up in the air.
Reader Comments(0)