An early season, record breaking snowstorm broke out across Montana over the weekend. The flakes started falling on Saturday and kept falling, and falling and falling. Many locations saw a healthy amount of snow for a mid winter storm, but this is the first half of October. Snow this month is not uncommon, many years it does snow in October, but not this much. A cold airmass from Alaska met up with a strong storm system that even gathered moisture and energy from the remnants of Hurricane Rachel. Yup, you could almost tell this much snow is hurricane moisture. As much as two feet was reported. The storm hit when most of the state's trees were reaching peak color. The leaves created more surface area for the heavy wet snow to accumulate on the trees. Widespread tree damage occurred in the state with the Helena area getting hit especially hard. This storm broke numerous records for daily precipitation, and daily snowfall. The Great Falls National Weather Service reported 16" of snow, which was the 17th greatest 3-day snowfall ever in Great Falls. 15.7" fell over a 2-day period, making it the 9th greatest snowstorm ever. And to date, this storm made it the second snowiest start to the snow season ever, just behind all the early snow that fell in September and October of 2019. Many people still have a lot of digging out and cleaning up from a truly historic storm. And now you're a little more Weather Wise.
Curtis Grevenitz
Meteorologist
