NEWS

Winds blow away records in Great Falls, Helena, Havre

David Murray
dmurray@greatfallstribune.com

A fast moving Pacific cold front whipped through northcentral Montana Saturday, setting peak wind gusts records in Great Falls, Helena and Havre.

“For this date (Feb. 6) Havre set a new record for peak wind gust,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Keith Jaszka. “The previous record there was 58 miles per hour set back in 1996. Today the new record was 64 mph. Helena set a new record as well. Their previous record was 44 mph back in 2008. Today they had a peak wind gust of 53 mph.”

Great Falls also set a record for Feb. 6, with a peak wind gust of 57 mph shortly before noon, topping the old record of 55 mph set in 1955.

That was just a light breeze compared to the hurricane force gusts taking place further north.

“We had a 98 mph wind gust at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park,” Jaszka said. “In Deep Creek, southwest of Browning – they had a peak wind gust of 78 mph.”

Translated into hurricane wind force, the Logan Pass gust would rank as a category II hurricane, capable of uprooting trees, damaging roofs and breaking windows.

“This time of year it’s not unusual for these high wind events to feature peak wind gusts in the 80 to 100 mph range along an near the Rocky Mountain Front,” Jaszka said.

High winds in winter are often associated with warming trends east of the continental divide, but Saturday’s wind event was cold; with temperatures dropping by 10 degrees as the high winds moved into the region.

In Great Falls, the warmest part of the day came before 4 a.m., when temperatures topped out at 44 degrees. Three hours later, as winds were picking up to around 30 mph, the temperature had dropped to 35.

“The reason why it wasn’t particularly warm during this event was due to that Pacific cold front, which actually ushered slightly cooler air from Canada into our area,” Jaszka said.

“Here in northcentral Montana, including Cascade County, we are expecting much calmer winds through the middle of this workweek,” he added. “In terms of high temperatures; those are expected generally to be in the low 40s on Sunday, but by Monday we’ll actually be warming up nicely.

“We will have dry weather conditions through the middle of the upcoming workweek. On Monday we’re expecting highs in the low to mid 50s across most of northcentral Montana; and then in the 55- to 60-degree range for Tuesday as well as Wednesday.”