Temps might rise to above zero, but warm days not in forecast

Snow was falling this morning and the temperature rising — Havre City-County Airport recorded a comparatively balmy zero degrees by 11 a.m. — but while temperatures may hit warmer than zero in the next week or two, forecasters do not expect them to hit anywhere near normal.

Christian Cassell, a meteorologist in Great Falls with National Weather Service, said a chunk of cold air from the polar regions broke off and descended into central North America this month, plunging temperatures in the east and then moving west.

That has brought sub-zero temperatures to Montana and west of the Continental Divide, dropping temperatures and bringing large amounts of snow to regions that normally do not see that kind of weather, like Seattle and western Oregon and closing roads in California as well as bringing heavy rain to parts of that state.

Cassell said the cold air is denser, heavier and won’t likely move until a strong front or chinook scours it out and brings in warmer air from the west.

“It’s really stubborn. It doesn’t want to move out. That’s why it’s stuck in this pattern,” he said, adding, “It doesn’t look like it’s going to move out any time soon.”

The cold weather from the Arctic caused the weather in north-central Montana to do an about-face.

The high temperature in Havre was 44 degrees Fahrenheit Feb. 1 followed by 42 Feb. 2.

Then the cold air moved in. Feb. 3 saw a high of 1 degree, and, through Tuesday, that was the last day the temperature at Havre was warmer than zero.

Havre even set a new record Feb. 14, with its low of minus 41 at 8:20 a.m. breaking the previous record, minus 40, set in 1994.

And the region could follow in last year’s pattern and break, or nearly break, a dubious record — the coldest February.

Last year a brutal winter broke some records for specific days, and February ended up with the most snow for that month on record, but Havre ended up less than an inch short of a new record of snowfall for the snow year.

The record for a cold February was set in 1936, with the average temperature minus 12.8 degrees.

“That’s sort of the benchmark,” Cassell said.

Despite having two warmer-than-normal days at the start of the month, this year could come in third- or even second-coldest on record. Cassell said the average temperature for the first 12 days of February is minus 6.6 degrees, the ninth-coldest on record for those 12 days.

“That’s very cold, but not extremely cold,” he said.

But if the cold trend holds — and it looks like it will — Havre could beat out some lower records.

“If that were to happen, it would be the new second-coldest February on record,” he said.

The second-coldest February on record so far is from 1887, with an average in February of minus 4.9 degrees.

The third-coldest February was in 1891, with and average of minus 0.2 degrees.

Temperatures in the forecast for this region are predicted to rise above the zero-degree mark over the next week or so, with temperatures predicted to hit comparatively balmy levels in the teens next week, but lows are expected to stay below zero through the period.