Havre ranked No. 1 worst-winter city in America

Havre won new honor and earned national attention this week, when Weather Channel listed it as having the worst winter so far in the country.

“The number one slot goes to Havre Montana,” Weather Channel Meteorologist Danielle Banks said in a broadcast Tuesday. “This city saw more than a foot of heavy, wet snow in October followed by a snowy December and January and finally winter really kicked into overdrive in February.”

Havre topped the list in the segment “The Five Worst Winter Cities of 2017-18 May Surprise You” that aired Tuesday.

Two of the cities were ranked in the top five for reasons other than cold and snow.

No. 5, Amarillo, Texas, was selected for the opposite — hot, dry weather. The drought and fires resulting from it put the city in the top five.

No. 2, Montecito, California, was placed for similar reasons. Hot, dry weather led to fires including The Thomas Fire, listed as the largest fire in California history, and then flooding and mudslides adding to the devastation and deaths put it on the list.

Nos. 3 and 4 were on the list for more normal wintry problems.

Erie, Pennsylvania made No. 4 with the lead comment, “When a city crushes its snowfall record by 3.5 feet, it should easily be No. 1 on the list, right?”

The city received a two-day record on snowfall Christmas Day and Dec. 26, which helped Erie to a record 192.3 inches of seasonal snow, as of March 26 — more than 7 feet above the season’s average.

But it’s winter wasn’t particularly cold.

Scituate, Massachusetts, was listed as No. 3, with the Weather Channel saying virtually any city on the state’s eastern shore could have been picked, with January’s Winter Storm Grayson followed by four March nor’easters battering the region.

But Havre topped the list.

“We had to give the nod for worst winter city to a location that was both well above average for snowfall and very cold relative to a typical winter,” the Weather Channel story said.

It cites the October record-breaking blizzard that pummeled trees, shut down streets and highways and knocked power out from Chester to Malta, with some people waiting more than a week for power to be restored.

Then, it says, a cold, snowy December followed. Subzero temperatures locked in from Christmas into January, with more snow and bitterly cold temperatures coming that month.

Then, as the story says, “winter really kicked into overdrive in February.

By mid-month, Havre had nearly doubled its previous record amount of snow for February, blowing away the 1978 record of 18.6 inches for the entire month with a new record of 31.8 inches.

Havre did not set a new record for cold, but it came close this winter, with the average temperature of 8.6 degrees the seventh-coldest on record.

It also does not — yet — have the record for the most snow in the year. Havre has through Wednesday received 82.6 inches of snow. The winter of 1981-82 — which also is sixth-coldest on record  saw 93.4 inches of snow.