Distinctly Montana Magazine

W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M 31 E M W As a reminder of what the weather can do, Montana had a taste of winter in summer this year as up to four feet of snow fell in parts of Montana on the third week of September (before Fall Equinox), enough for intrepid skiers to get summer turns. A Sep- tember 22 snowstorm shut down nearly every road in Yellowstone National Park. Following that, the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation reported 30 inches of snow from a blizzard on October 3, with drifts up to 8 feet! Havre and other Hi-Line towns experienced blizzard conditions and power outages from the same storm. Anyone who has lived in Big Sky Country for a while recalls some awesome—er, hard—winters (one person's bad winter is another person's powder paradise). Skiers still reminisce about the winter of 1996-97 for its deep, stable snowpack and epic backcountry skiing. In a state known for long cold snowy winters, some really stand out. Bad winters can be defined by extremely low temperatures and deep snow. e combination of the two can be deadly, especially when they last for several months. THE MOTHER OF ALL WINTERS It would be hard to imagine a worse winter than 1886-87. at season changed the livestock industry, and the way people live on the western plains forever. Before that horrendous winter, cattle were left to forage on the open range with no supplemental feed. A series of mild winters had made this practical. Speculators hoping to get rich had stocked the range with huge numbers of cattle in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming and elsewhere. A hot dry 1886 summer baked the grass on the range and large cattle herds stripped it to nubbins. Heavy snow started in No- vember and a series of blizzards buried the open range. A warm spell followed by a deep freeze left an impenetrable ice crust over remaining grass, and cattle starved, coming into towns and brows- ing on trees and shrubs. On January 9 came a 16-inch snowfall, extreme cold, and blowing and drifting snow. Cattle froze standing up and dropped dead in the streets. With nothing to feed them, ranchers could do little to save their livestock. M ONTANA IS INFAMOUS FOR ITS EXTREMES OF TERRAIN AND WEATHER. Snowstorms can howl across this state like packs of white wolves, screaming through the streets, burying cars and stranding drivers in white-out conditions. Roads become glazed with ice and ground blizzards destroy visibility. e Treasure State's weather is sometimes described as nine months of winter and three months of poor skiing. We even enjoy Montana-specific terms for cold weather, including Graupel snow and Cold Smoke. BY PHIL KNIGHT ' 5 ONT A NA , S w o r s t i nte r s % 1

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