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Historic cold impacting SW Montana

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BOZEMAN – The last 5 days have been historic for SW Montana with numerous daily record cold temperatures. Record cold maximum temperatures and more impressive record cold minimums.

Dillon has set 5 in-a-row daily record morning lows beginning back on Thursday October 22nd through Monday October 26th. The coldest morning low was -9° on Monday October 26th, which set a daily record low but it’s also the all-time coldest low in the month of October (unofficially).

Butte dropped down to -18° Monday October 26th, which is a new record low. Butte’s all-time-record low for October is -23° on October 30th, 1991. Butte set new record lows for Sunday October 25th with -15° and Monday October 26th with -18°.

Bozeman airport or Belgrade out of the last 5 mornings 4 of them have been record breaking cold morning lows. Belgrade set a new record low of 15° on October 22nd, 4° morning low on Saturday October 24th, -14° record low on Sunday October 25th, and lastly -20° record low on Monday October 25th.

Bozeman airport or Belgrade old all-time record October low was -14° back on October 29th and again on the 30th in 2019. So, the -20° low on Monday October 26th is a new unofficial all-time record cold low.

At the time I am writing this article we do not have the Bozeman MSU report for Monday October 26th. I’ll have their data after 4 pm and will report their data tonight at 5:30 pm and 10 pm on KBZK.

West Yellowstone’s west gate fell to -22° Monday October 26th, setting a daily record low and a new all-time record cold October low temperature.

The forecast for the rest of the week is looking up. A slow warming trend is expected, however, there is a lot of snow on the ground and that will keep temperatures below normal for several more days. As the valley snowpack melts gradually and a flow aloft veers out of the west to SW temperatures could reach the 40s to lower 50s by the end of the week.