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Weather Wise: Frigid November

Weather Wise: Frigid November
Posted at 10:08 AM, Dec 06, 2022
and last updated 2022-12-06 12:08:34-05

It's December now, but November was one for the record books and maybe a month to forget for some.

Do you remember October and how the gorgeous fall weather seemed never-ending? Those days of blue sky, golden leaves and warm temperatures. There was nothing wintry about October as the temperature averaged 4 to 6 degrees above normal, it seemed so warm.

Well, how things changed in November. Most of Montana averaged between 9 and 12 degrees below normal, 2 to 3 times the anomaly of October. snow was generally way above average for most of the state.

Glasgow had 14 inches of snow for the month when it typically receives around 6 inches. The snow totals for the month were almost as much as Glasgow has all of last year, 23 inches.

Havre and Cut Bank both had an average temperature of about 21 degrees, nearly 9 degrees below normal.

Great Falls was over 10 degrees colder than normal and had twice the normal snowfall totaling 18 inches.

Helena was one of the coldest locations in the state with inversions prohibiting a brief Thanksgiving warmup that a lot of Montana did see. The average temperature for the month was 21 degrees, about 11.5 degrees below normal with over a foot of new snow when the average is just 5 inches.

But this was not the coldest November on record, that belongs to 1985. That November most of Montana averaged an astonishing 20 degrees below normal while several feet of snow covered the ground. The year 1959 also was one of the snowiest Novembers on record.