Western Montana’s weather this month featured a little bit of everything: heat, powerful storms, some rain and even an early taste of late fall. In other words, experts say it was a normal August.
August’s grab bag of weather was a far cry from July’s unrelenting triple digit heatwave.
Par for the course, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Luke Robinson in Missoula.
“It may seem crazy, but when you look at the grand scheme of things and you look at historical averages it’s not all that uncommon,” Robinson said.
Recent thunderstorms knocked out power to thousands of Ravalli County residents and sparked a new wildfire. Robinson says those storms were the byproduct of wet air from the west colliding with warm, dry Montana air. Strong storms are not uncommon in the Rockies this time of year.
Wednesday’s shot of chilly - and in some of northwest Montana’s higher terrain - snowy conditions was jarring, but not unheard of according to Robinson.
Temperatures are already rebounding and will climb into well above normal readings this weekend.
Forecasters now say there’s a 70-percent probability of La Niña conditions starting in November, which could lead to colder and snowier conditions than last winter.
