No let up in winter weather expected

Keep those shovels handy and the snowblower gassed up, there’s plenty more of the white stuff headed for the Flathead.

While skiers and snowboarders around the region rejoice, fender benders and bruised bottoms remain the norm as Western Montanans continue sliding around on snow and ice. The National Weather Service in Missoula is calling for more snow all the way through the weekend to add to last week’s storms that ensured a very white Christmas.

On Monday, the service issued a Winter Weather Advisory for the region, with the hardest-hit area expected to be in the immediate vicinity of Flathead Lake. Mother Nature did not disappoint, with up to five inches recorded in Bigfork.

But if the covered driveways and soaked pant cuffs are frustrating, at least temperatures have wriggled up from most of December’s frigid grasp. The Weather service predicted highs right around freezing through the New Years week, with the coldest day forecasted for those brave — or foolish — enough to take the dip into Flathead Lake at the annual Polar Bear Plunge at the Raven in Woods Bay on Thursday. The forecasted high for the first day of 2009 is 26 degrees.

For each person dismayed at the thought of shoveling out before work again, though, there’s another happy that the snow has finally arrived.

Area ski hills are reporting huge amounts of snowfall after a disappointingly slow start. Blacktail Mountain in Lakeside had 26 inches fall in 48 hours on Monday and Tuesday with a settled base now at 54 inches at their mid-mountain measuring stick.

Whitefish Mountain Resort, at the other end of the Valley, has 63 inches at the summit with more coming down all the time. As of the start of the week, the Whitefish hill was boasting the deepest reported base in the state.

It isn’t a totally rosy picture for snow enthusiasts, because all this precipitation means an increased danger in the backcountry. The Glacier Country Avalanche Center rates the avalanche danger as “Considerable” for elevations between 5,500 and 7,500 feet, particularly on steep, open and recently wind-loaded slopes. Below 5,500 feet the avalanche danger was rated as “Moderate,” but the outlook for the week indicated an expected rise in the danger levels as more moisture moved into the area.

There was a small avalanche in the Canyon Creek drainage between the North Fork Road and the summit of Big Mountain on Saturday that buried a snowmobile but no people. A slide inside the boundaries of Jackson Hole Resort in Wyoming killed a 26-year-old skier on Sunday. An avalanche near Fernie, British Columbia killed eight snowmobilers over the weekend, and two more died in a slide in Colorado.