Weather scorches the fair over the weekend

Mother Nature turned up the heat during the Great Northern Fair following a week of relatively cooler weather along with storms and thunderstorms that brought brief downpours and damaging hail the week before.

By 2:38 p.m. Sunday National Weather Service reported Havre had hit 100 degrees at the recording station at the Havre City-County Airport, following a high of 97 Saturday and 95 Friday. Wednesday, which earlier had been predicted to see a high of 100 or more in Havre topped out at 95 degrees.

The temps had started to drop in Havre by 5 p.m. Sunday, with Weather Service reporting the temperature at 99 degrees, but Chinook was listed at 100 degrees.

National Weather Service at 6 p.m. Sunday was reporting highs from 104 to 106 in Malta and Glasgow, respectively, and many spots with 100 degrees or more in the eastern part of the state.

The weather the week before was comparatively cooler but produced severe thunderstorms through that week, including tennis ball-sized hail west of Havre and multiple downbursts that were dropping a quarter-inch of rain in 15 minutes.

Highs that week were mostly in the 80s.

The forecast for this week calls for some thunderstorms and temperatures a bit lower than last week.

Highs are expected to be mainly in the 80s to low 90s in this region this week, with a chance of showers and thunderstorms today and tonight with mostly sunny skies to the weekend.