A Record Blizzard

The winter storm that hit northeast Montana on Thursday night wasn’t a surprise. It had been making its way across the state, heralded by the forecasters. But its intensity on Friday brought on the winter grumbles.

The storm deserved the term blizzard, with heavy snow that was blown by winds up to 41 mph, causing white-out conditions and drifts reported up to 9 feet deep.

The low temperature of 1 degree above zero Friday night translated to about 29 below wind chill.

A record 7 inches of snow was recorded by the Glasgow office of the National Weather Service, pushing the total snowfall in January to 9.3 inches, which was 5.8 inches more than normal for the date.

Similar reports came in from all of northeastern Montana on Friday, indicating a widespread storm. Schools were closed in Opheim. No school buses ran in Glasgow, although school was not closed. Some sporting events were canceled.

Many people who live out of town left work early Friday to get home before dark.

Skies cleared on Saturday and the temperature dropped, only reaching 6 degrees and falling to -15 overnight. Sunday saw a similar range of temperatures with light snow and fog.

The weather thawed on Tuesday and was expected to continue warmer on Wednesday, but then will turn very cold again through the weekend. Expect the single-digit and below-zero conditions of last weekend, but without the snow.