Spring?

Though we long ago whisked by the first day of spring for this year and have stepped solidly on a path toward summer, I just now awaked to a snowstorm.  Yesterday, snow fell against the high mountains.  On the way to my cabin, I snapped the photo I posted as I descended toward the Upper Blackfoot Valley from the top of the Continental Divide. 

Fortunately, I have learned to always have a jacket in my truck.

Here some other reasons to always carry a jacket as you travel around Montana:

·         The coldest temperature ever recorded in the Lower 48 states was captured at Rogers Pass, Montana (not more than a dozen miles from where I took today’s picture) on January 20, 1954.  The temperature plummeted to -70 degrees on that day.

·         In February of 1989, Helena witnessed a 50 degree plummet in temperature in only an hour.  By the end of that day, as a wild Arctic blast brawled with the Pacific impulse that had been squatting over our valley, the temperature dropped nearly 100 degrees, falling from 50 above in the morning, to 40 below just after dark.

·         A meteorologist in Havre once witnessed a rise in temperature of 26 degrees in less than a minute (45 seconds, to be exact.)  In another January, somebody recorded a 47 degree lift in only 7 minutes. 

Bottom line: you always need to be prepared for all seasons here in Montana.  You never know how many seconds away you will find the next big swing of temperature.

--Mitchell Hegman