Spring Blizzard Wreaks Havoc On SE Montana

A severe blizzard brought heavy snow, wind, and cold to the area last week, closing roads, knocking out power, killing young animals, and leaving travelers stranded. Beginning on Tuesday, April 12th, the spring storm continued through Wednesday, while temperatures bordering on record lows persisted, lasting through the weekend.

The storm began on Tuesday and quickly knocked out power to the area due to an outage with Northwest Energy at Colstrip just after noon, with power restored around 4:30 pm. A subsequent planned outage occurred on the 13th, which lasted less than an hour.

The high winds associated with the storm closed Highway 212 from Broadus to Crow Agency on Tuesday, Hwy 59 from Broadus to Miles City on Wednesday, then Hwy 212 from Alzada to Broadus later in the day, while Hwy 59 south to Gillette remained open but nearly impassable due to heavy ice.

These closures left a number of travelers and truckers stranded in Broadus and Alzada. In Broadus, semi-trucks lined the highway and were scattered throughout town until Thursday, when the roads reopened.

Reports of "several hundred" truckers stranded in Broadus were shared on social media. Sheriff Drane told us that on Thursday morning he had conveyed the knowledge about the open road to Gillette, and he thought around 100 who had been trapped in Broadus took him up on the offer and traveled south on 59 to Gillette. On Thursday around noon we counted just over one hundred trucks still remaining in Broadus.

In the meantime, the local motel rooms filled with those awaiting the re-opening, and Faith Bible Church hosting 23 stranded truckers, feeding and housing folks on Wednesday night with help from DES and Volunteer firefighters who provided cots.

A major traffic incident occurred during the storm on Hwy 212 east of Hammond. Montana Highway Patrol reports that around 2 PM on Wednesday the initial incident took place, which is still under investigation. Due to traffic back up, poor visibility, and poor road conditions, the initial wreck led to a chain of events in which 20 vehicles in total sustained damage, while others became stuck in the snow trying to avoid the wreck.

Several people sustained non-life threatening injuries in the incident and were transported by ambulance to the Black Hills. The roadway was completely blocked, but by late afternoon the Highway 212 corridor had been shut down from Alzada to Crow Agency, closing down traffic. Plains Towing from Belle Fourche worked to clear the roadway, along with Hanser's Towing from Billings, and by 7 AM the next morning the roadway was cleared.

Officers from the Montana Highway Patrol, Carter County Sheriff's Department, and Motor Carrier Services responded to the incident.

Ranchers around the area were hit hard by the storm, many of whom were in the midst of calving and lambing. Reports trailed in of moderate newborn calf and lamb losses, particularly in the wind-swept open country of Northeastern Powder River County and into Carter County. Producers spent long days and nights out saving newly born animals, feeding their herds, and plowing out facilities.

Cancellations of scheduled activities were the norm for the duration of the storm. Broadus Schools cancelled classes on Tuesday, then again on Wednesday and Thursday. With the previous spring break scheduled for Friday and Monday, the kids had a week home from school. It should be noted that the day off scheduled for this Friday, April 22nd, has been turned into a regular school day.

The Easter Egg hunts scheduled for Thursday were cancelled, and the closed roads precluded mail and most importantly, newspaper delivery, until Friday. A bright spot in the storm – in our rush to put out the paper as early as possible last week in case of a potential power outage, we were able to send the paper off to print earlier than usual, beating the actual power outage by less than an hour.

The extremely high winds associated with the storm made snow totals difficult to measure, with anywhere from an icy, thin sheet in windswept areas on up to head high or deeper drifts in coulees and areas where snow could be caught, such as in corrals. In general, heavier snow was reported in the north end of the county, with snow totals reported to the National Weather Service of 14.5" 18.8 miles NNW of Broadus, around 10" in areas to the west near Sonnette and Ashland, around 8-10" in the Broadus area, and 4.5-6.5" in the southern reaches of the county, near Biddle and Moorhead.

Broadus does not have an official weather station that records wind, but we took a look around the area at RAWS stations, which do measure wind. At the Ekalaka station, max winds each day from the 12th to the 14th were 42, 48, and 45 mph. The Bradshaw Creek station, location northwest of Moorhead had gusts of 39, 37, and 29. The Fort Howes data was incomplete, but had a top speed of 31 on April 12th. The highest gust at that station thus far in April was 53, on April 5th.

The storm brought with it low nightly temperatures, with the mercury falling as low as 12, on the 13th in Broadus. Though the temps were seasonably cold, no low temperature records fell in Broadus. In fact, the lowest recorded temperature in April recorded in Broadus came on April 11, 1997, with a reading of -5.

Quite often during spring storms in Southeastern Montana warm weather will trail the storm, causing the snows to quickly melt. That was not the case with the April blizzard of 2022, as temperatures remained chilly, and lows staying in the teens through the 16th, accompanied by high winds over the weekend. This gradual warming led to the majority of the snow soaking right into the ground instead of running off, and thus providing some much needed moisture for the previously parched ground.