It’s snowing to beat the band on the first day of spring here in Bozeman - we have to run over to Livingston to drop off the files for a small magazine we publish, and will grab some pics as we pop over the hill.  Big Sky has had 10 inches over the past two days (as of early this morning), and Bridger was reporting 8″ in the past 24 hours (again, an early morning snow report). 

 

The NWS has released their update climate prediction maps and models for March - for the mountain west that has so desperately wanted to see huge spring snows, it appears the La Nina effect that had provided us above average precip for several of the past winter months has weakened to the point that our precip probabilities have drifted back down into the normal range.  That’s not all bad as the March / April / May time period tends to be a pretty wet time for the neighborhood anyway.  A truly successful snowpack depends on a wet and cool spring, and though the low and some of the mid level snow has come off already, there’s still a very reasonably healthy snowpack in place high, and smaller storms like we have rolling through today certainly help. 

The lower graphic is the temp forecast for April/May/June - a very warm southwest and a warm southern tier has been forecast, and again the mountain west has been pegged for normal temps.  Doesn’t sound too bad - spring has become one of our most favorite times to be one the water in Montana.  If you’ve not enjoyed spring fishing - it does beat the hell out of eating smoke and roasting in August (there are ways to beat that too). 

The mantra continues - think snow and a cool spring. 

 

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