Hurricane-force winds recorded in Glacier
Hungry Horse News
The Flathead saw some wild weather last week that knocked out power, created a multitude of accidents and surged hurricane-force wind gusts in Glacier National Park.
At Logan Pass on Dec. 14 the remote weather station there recorded wind gusts of 122 mph and another gust of 133 mph at 8 p.m. Dec. 13 as weather systems blew through.
The storm blew in Thursday night with a heavy wet snow. The snow iced up causing hazardous driving conditions and one highway patrolman said he'd been on three wrecks in an hour up the Canyon.
There was also a hit and run accident at the Blue Moon intersection after a an SUV made a left hand turn on a green light in front of an eastbound car.
The SUV sideswiped the car, blowing out the driver side windshield. The car then collided with an eastbound Toyota pickup truck.
No one was seriously hurt, but the driver of the SUV left the scene of the accident.
The storm also knocked out power to West Glacier and there was no school there Friday because of the power outage.
The weather actually warmed up and it rained Friday and then cooled back down, freezing everything.
The cold weather, however, brought sunny skies most of the weekend, making for spectacular, but cold weather in places like Glacier as lows dropped to zero or well below.
According to the National Weather Service, we're running about one-third of an inch behind a normal year for precipitation at 2.95 inches in Kalispell.
Snow packs are running behind an average year. The snow water equivalent in the Flathead drainage is 81 percent of average, but the precipitation total is 122 percent of average, because of heavy rains in November that melted all the snow and caused flooding, particularly along the Divide in Glacier National Park.
Snow is expected over the weekend and with snow still sticking around from previous storms, it looks like pretty safe bet for a white Christmas.
The snows in the high country have ramped up the avalanche danger. Above 5,500 feet the Glacier Country Avalanche Center is rating the danger at considerable and below 5,500 feet it is rated at moderate.
A snowmobiler from North Dakota, Jeffrey Michel of Jamestown, N.D., was killed on Scotch Bonnet Mountain several miles north of Cooke City after he was buried by an avalanche while high marking.
High marking is where snowmobilers try to climb as far as they can up a steep slope. He triggered an avalanche that buried him under seven feet of snow Dec. 16, the Associated Press reported.
Michel was the first avalanche death in Montana this year.