Cold Conditions Lead Into A Warm Christmas

Brutal cold and wind punctuated the week before Christmas, as ambient air temperatures fell to -31 in Broadus on December 23rd. The record low for that date was -35 from 1989, and other days that week had record lows from 1983 and 1989 of up to -47 degrees ambient temperature. The difference maker in 2022 was the high winds, which howled across the area causing white-out conditions and making life difficult for human and animal alike as they struggled through the artic blast. On December 22nd winds gusted to 46 mph at the RAWS station in Ekalaka with an ambient air low temp of -25. Bradshaw Creek RAWS topped out at 32 mph on the 24th with a low of -23, and Fort Howes had a low of -32 on the 22nd with 24 mph winds. Wind chill values seem to be in vogue these days, and wind chill values in the 40 to 60 below range were reported across Eastern Montana during the cold snap.

The forecasted lows forced the closure of Broadus Schools on Thursday, as well as many other schools in Montana, as the temps were low enough to potentially cause diesel fuel to gel in the buses, and cause generally unsafe conditions. Thus sc-hool kids in Broadus had one more day added to their Christmas break as school was already out on Friday for the holidays.

A number of events were postponed or cancelled during the spat of storms. Some of those events include the fire department's burn permit meeting, which is now scheduled for January 19th at 6 pm at the Community Center. The Powder River Manor Open House was rescheduled to January 5th at 5 pm. Basketball games against St. Labre and Melstone were rescheduled. St. Labre home games will take place Tuesday January 17th, and the games in Melstone are tentatively planned for Saturday, February 4th.

The temperature variations witnessed in the days before Christmas were quite extreme. The Broadus Courthouse station went from a low of -31 on December 23rd to a high of 44 on Christmas, for a temperature swing on 75 degrees in just over 48 hours.

Christmas day brought the gift of chinook winds, as temperatures rose and warm winds burned off a lot of snow, allowing some respite from the ice and allowing grazers to access the grass, though a large amount of ice still remained where snow had been packed down or melting snow formed icy puddles.

The weather in December was decidedly cold and snowy for the majority of the month, with snow enveloping the area the night of December 1st and sticking around in some capacity (especially in frozen drifts) through the rest of the month. The average temperature was 16.9 in Broadus, or 8.7 degrees below normal, and Broadus received 1.20" of precipitation in December, or 0.72" above the normal 0.48".

The shot of moisture in December pushed the precipitation totals for 2022 very close to the all-time average, as Broadus received 14.70" of moisture for the year. The long term average since 1920 is 14.92".