Cold/Wind Chill — Northern Valley, Montana

2021-12-27 to 2021-12-31 · Northern Valley, Montana

Event narrative

At the Bluff Creek RAWS site (BLUM8), temperatures in the teens and 20s below zero and breezy winds created intermittent periods of wind chills of -40 or worse from the early morning of the 27th into the late night of the 31st. The peak wind chill of -45 was recorded at 7:44 AM on the 27th.

Wider weather episode

A large arctic air mass descended southward from Canada to spread across our region for multiple days. Re-enforcing cold low pressure disturbances continued to rotate along the edge of this air mass, which supported this prolonged dangerously cold period. For most of these days, enough wind was present to create dangerously cold wind chill values for may locations across northeast Montana, and persisted through New Year's Eve.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 996475. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.