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Just One Storm in Montana

I’ve shared quite a few winter pictures of Montana and I’ll probably share more since the winter weather isn’t over yet. We’ve actually had a mild winter in comparison to the last 6-7 years and most of the snow has fallen in the mountains. In February, though, the weather caught up with us.

On Saturday, 16 February, my daughter drove here from her home about an hour away. She took me back to work on her car. That was sort of a bust since I couldn’t fix it, despite working on it for a few hours. She brought me home a little before dusk and though the temperatures had warmed up above freezing during the day, they were dropping fast. We came through one snow flurry about 15 miles from home and the clouds were obviously coming in from the west.

On Sunday morning, we had about three inches of fresh, powdery snow on the ground here. It was light, dry snow and I had no problem getting it off of our car with a broom, in order to go to church. However, our little town is known for having the mildest temperatures and weather in the state. I knew that Cat would no doubt have gotten more snow than we did. After all, she lives at the base of the Mission Mountains and her altitude is a couple of hundred feet higher than ours.

I wasn’t wrong about her getting more snow. She shared what she woke up to on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning near the Mission Mountains

This is the snowfall Cat got overnight. Notice that the bottom of the palm of her hand is on the top of the rear-view mirror of the SUV. It was bare of snow when she parked after getting home from dropping me off. This is fresh snow.

Cat has large hands for a woman, nearly as big as mine. This tells me that at least eight or nine inches of snow fell overnight from the single storm. Her little poodle mix dog, Cassie, is standing in a footprint and the snow level is well over her shoulder.

This is one of the snowstorms that is moving east. When I said to expect snow, I wasn't kidding.

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What do you think?

Written by Rex Trulove

2 Comments

    • That is something that any traveler needs to do, regardless of how far they must travel. The disadvantage of living in places like we do and our daughter does is that sometimes travel is totally necessary. It can’t be avoided. As long as people keep their wits about them and are careful, they can normally stay safe.