Slow-moving cold front brings snow, record rains

A slow-moving weather system moved across northcentral and southwestern Montana on Monday and Tuesday, bringing snow to the upper elevations at ski resorts and dousing fields, forests and parks with some desperately needed precipitation.

“This morning it was snowing right where the ski lifts start and all the way up the mountain,” said Tom Conway, assistant golf pro at Big Sky Resort south of Bozeman. “At our elevation on the golf course, about 6,500 feet, it was raining. But at 9,000 feet there was about an inch or two of accumulation.”

“I’ve been her for four summers,” Conway added, “and this is the first time I’ve seen it snow in July. It was a pretty crazy day.”

Paul Nutter, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Great Falls, said portions of Hill and Blaine counties could receive more than 2 inches of rainfall by Tuesday afternoon, with the possibility of localized flooding and flash-floods, especially in areas recently impacted by wildland fires.

Brief heavy rainfall produced street flooding that quickly cleared in Lewistown on Monday afternoon, Nutter said.

A flood watch was issued for northcentral Montana from 6 p.m. Monday through Tuesday morning.

As of 5 p.m., 0.50 inches of rain had fallen in Bozeman, breaking a record set in 1956, and Dillon had received 0.60 inches, topping the record set in 2002. Great Falls, where 0.56 inches of rain had fallen, was closing in on the record of 0.67 inches set in 1909.

The record cool high temperature for Monday in Great Falls is 69 degrees. Temperatures were in the 50s Monday and likely to break that record.

“This is very atypical for this time of year,” Nutter said.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, 1.71 inches of rain had had been recorded at the Rocky Boy weather station in Bear Paw Mountains.

Mariah Leuschen, a public information officer at the Cabin Gulch fire east of Townsend, said the NWS cautioned fire officials that rains could cause erosion on the fire line and flash flooding.

“Areas that burned a little bit hotter and the steeper slopes will probably have some level of erosion,” Leuschen said.

The potential for flash flooding increases at recently burned areas because the heat makes the soil less absorbent, Nutter said.

As of 4 p.m. Monday, Havre had received 0.89 inches of rain.

Unfortunately, the late season moisture could be a matter of too little, too late to turn around a disappointing crop year.

“It’s all going to depend on where you are in your harvest,” said Darrin Boss, Superintendent of the Northern Agriculture Research Center in Havre. “If we have mature winter wheat that’s ready to be harvested this rain could manifest a problem if its over several days. There’s various things that could affect the quality of the wheat by having this much rain at one time this late in the season.”

Wheat sprouting from the head, declining protein values, complications in getting the grain from the field to the bin — the total accumulation of precipitation is almost less important than the time at which it falls.

For the spring wheat and hay crops; however, the added blast of moisture has almost no downside.

“If you have green spring wheat that’s not ready to harvest yet, this rain is probably going to help that head fill and produce better quality wheat. We’ve probably set the yields because we’ve already gone too far. It’s just whether the extra rain can help bring up some nutrients and get that protein pushed up into the head as it goes in to set the seed.”

Rains began in the Great Falls area with scattered thunderstorms Sunday afternoon.

“It’s unusual in the sense we may set not only cool maximum records, we also may set a precipitation record for the date,” Nutter said.