Heavy Snow — Meagher, Montana

2020-10-23 to 2020-10-24 · Meagher, Montana

Event narrative

Social media report of 9.5in snow in Martinsdale.

Wider weather episode

On Friday, October 23, Montana was in the crosshairs for a strong early winter snow storm set to begin later that afternoon afternoon and continue through Saturday evening. A strong upper level disturbance positioned over southeast Alaska would continue to move south-southeastward during the day, reaching the Pacific Northwest/British Columbia border by late in the afternoon. This feature would then approach western Montana overnight in conjunction with a strong surface cold front that would sweep southward out of Alberta into north central portions of the state. Widespread snow (heavy at times), blowing snow, and very cold wind chills were anticipated overnight and through the day on Saturday. Snow gradually tapered off Saturday night into early Sunday morning as the core of the upper level trough continued moving southward. Models were in excellent agreement on the details of this storm with very good run-to-run consistency so confidence was very high that impacts will be extensive and widespread. It appeared that the east slopes of the Rocky Mountains and much of central Montana would see upwards of 8 to 12 inches of snow accumulation, and some models even suggested that up to 18 inches of snow was not out of the question. The Winter Storm Warning remained in effect for this region, and was later upgraded to a Blizzard Warning for areas along the Rocky Mountain Front. Lesser amounts of snow were expected along eastern portions of the Hi-Line and in southwest Montana, so these areas were under a Winter Weather Advisory. Finally, a surface high pressure system would be centered over central and western Montana Sunday morning. This resulted in low temperatures on Sunday falling to near or below zero with many record temperatures expected to be set across the entire forecast area.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 925605. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.