The Change in a Month is Dramatic

I'd probably be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't agree that this is a beautiful view. This was after a minor snowstorm moved through and before three major snowstorms swept northwest Montana. 

Many of the bushes are nearly covered with snow in this image and those bushes are several feet tall. Notice the fir tree to the right of center that is partly covered with snow. That tree stands about 4-5 feet tall. That's a lot of snow, right? Well, maybe not.

This is perhaps a much better way to show how dramatic a month of storms has been. These are the same two previous images, side to side. On the left is the view on January 20. On the right is the view on February 25. 

It becomes easy to see that it wasn't just the tree that was buried. All of the bushes are also covered and the trees just downslope from the camera are about half buried, though they are much taller. 

All of this is with the knowledge that the storm that is just now starting is due to drop another foot of snow at the elevation of the lake, and we have an advisory for periods of an inch of snow per hour. That advisory is for 2,000 feet lower than where this picture is located, so you can imagine what is going to happen on this mountain. 

This is almost enough to make me wish that I was still young enough to go snow camping. I'd love to be there as the landscape actually changed right before my eyes.

Here is the view from Apgar Mountain on February 25, just over a month after the last image was taken. Three major storms have moved through and a fourth is already dropping snow on the mountain. Even with the cloud cover, there is a noticeable increase in the snow around Lake McDonald, in the background.

How much more snow is there? Well, where is the 4-5 foot fir tree I pointed out in the last image? It is still there, but now it is totally buried in snow. If you hadn't seen the previous image, it would be next to impossible to know that there is a tree to the right of the center of this image.