Winter weather hits region

After a long, dry summer and fall, wintry weather has hit the region, with snow whitening the ground and ice and frosting windshields.

National Weather Service reports that the station at the Havre City-County Airport now has recorded 2.5 inches of snow for December, with the snow starting to fall Saturday morning.

And the temperatures plummeted.

Havre went from a record high of 69 degrees Wednesday and a still-warm high of 55 Thursday — the normal temperature for that date is 36 degrees — to 34 degrees Saturday with the low dropping to 18 degrees then to a high of 22 Sunday and temperatures dropping to a low of minus 9 at the Havre airport this morning and a bitter minus 13 in Chinook.

Snow fell across the state over the weekend, with more expected in this area today and through early tonight, with rain and a chance of snow again Wednesday and Wednesday night.

No more snow is predicted after that through Sunday. After a forecast high in the teens today and 20s Tuesday, the highs are expected to go back into the 40s midweek, 30s Thursday and Friday and low 40s Saturday and Sunday with lows in the teens through the week and 20s Saturday night.

The long-range forecast is a little less clear, with a La Niña condition in the equatorial Pacific potentially bringing more cold temperatures and higher precipitation to the northwest, but forecasters are unsure how much of that will come to Montana.

The moisture is greatly needed, with much of the state listed as in exceptional drought — including Blaine, Chouteau, Hill and Liberty counties — to severe drought, with just the northwest corner of the state listed as in moderate drought, the lightest drought condition listed in Montana.