Much of Eastern Montana was bathed in bountiful moisture on May 6th and 7th, as a storm covered a large portion of the area. Broadus officially received 2.62” at the courthouse.
The storm dropped much needed moisture on the area after an exceptionally dry and windy April. In the month of April, Broadus received 0.44” of moisture, spread out throughout the month – only two days had over a tenth of an inch, and that was quickly blown away into the atmosphere by high winds.
When looking at wind data, the stations with the most accessible data are the Remote Automatic Weather Stations, or RAWS stations, administered by the National Interagency Fire Center provide daily weather. These stations are located in Ekalaka, at Fort Howes, and at Bradshaw Creek, near Moorhead. In Ekalaka during the month of April, the average daily high wind speed was 29 mph, with one day of 50 mph winds. Only one day, April 1st, was the high speed for the day less than 20 mph, at 18.
Conditions are Bradshaw Creek were a bit calmer, with an average daily high wind speed of 25.5 mph. That station topped out with a 43 mph gust on the 16th.
Fort Howes had an average daily high wind speed of 26.5 mph, while only gusting as high as 39 mph, also on the 16th.
Fort Howes received 1.27” of moisture in April (plus 2.02” in the early May storm), Bradshaw Creek 0.52” (and 1.58” in the early May storm), and Ekalaka 0.55” in total in April (with 0.85” in the early may storm).
The Biddle 8 miles SW station had 1.18” in total precip in April, with 4” of snow recorded. Their high temp for the month was 80, on April 14, and the low was 14, on April 20th. That station had 2.49” of precip thus far in May.
The Moorhead 9 miles NE station topped out at 82 on the 14th of April, and the mercury fell to 13, on the 20th. They had 1.16” of precip in April, with 0.7” of that in the form of snow. In May that station has had 2.32”.
The Sonnette 7 miles SW station had 1.92” of precip in April, with a whopping 23” of snow between April 7th and 8th that blanketed the high country along the divide. That station topped out at 79 on April 14, and fell to 10, on the 20th. Data from May was not available for that station at the time of printing, but reports from the area showed similar moisture totals to much of the rest of the area.
The Volborg station had 0.56” of total moisture in April, and an astounding 3.56” between May 6th and 9th.
The Powderville 8 miles NNE station had only 0.68” of precip in April, but thus far in May has won the local weather station precip lottery, with 3.82” in total. 2.66” of that was recorded on May 7th.
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