snowpack

Spring officially arrives tomorrow, sending old man winter packing! See how Montana’s snowpack measures up this year and why it’s more important than you think.

Tuesday into Wednesday morning could bring 40 MPH winds and much more snow for the southern mountains of Madison and Gallatin counties. The West Yellowstone area is an area of concern, with the high peaks of that area to get up to a foot of fresh snow.

Lots of mountain snow is falling in Montana, which is great news. Montana is still very far behind normal average snowpack levels and drought concerns are still big. Towns and valleys can expect some snow, but high elevations across Montana are expecting 4" to 8" of fresh snow, with up to a foot in some locations.

The mountains of western Montana might score 8 to 10 inches of fresh snow by Sunday afternoon. Warnings and advisories have been issued for just about every western county, but some higher elevations might receive nearly a foot of snow.

Montana's lack of snowfall and our dangerously low snowpack levels are becoming the stuff of fire season nightmares. As the winter weeks go by, our 'percentages of normal' keep ticking lower - and that's not good news for this summer.

The Tobacco Root, Elkhorn, and Boulder Mountains are just a few ranges that could get absolutely pummeled with fresh snow by Thursday night. Other Montana mountains may only see 6" to 12" of fresh snow. This next storm is classic 'snow roulette'.

Snowpack levels are certainly not at ideal levels throughout southwest Montana at the end of March. A month that often sees big, wet dumps of snow just didn't materialize in 2022.