GREAT FALLS – Several thousand people were without power Tuesday night as a spring storm packing wet, heavy snow made its way across northcentral Montana.
Claudia Rapkoch, a spokeswoman for NorthWestern Energy, said an electricity substation in Great Falls lost power at about 8 p.m. — bringing to 11,000 the number of customers without service. Crews restored power to the station, but about 5,000 people were still without electricity at 9 p.m.
“We’ve got all our crews out working and they will continue to work throughout the night,” Rapkoch said. “As we’re getting customers restored, we are also getting reports of new outages coming in.”
She added that trees were sagging into power lines, which were already weighed down with snow.
Jim Brusda, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Great Falls, said the snow began to fall Monday in the Browning area east of Glacier National Park. He said that by Tuesday night, the storm had dumped about 2 to 4 feet in those areas, and drifts of up to 6 feet were reported.
Great Falls received about 4 to 6 inches by Tuesday night, while Helena got about 5 to 6 inches in the city and as much as 13 inches in the nearby mountains.
“It’s a very moist snow,” Brusda said. “At times your almost pushing water out there. It’s definitely a spring storm.”
Brusda said he expected about 3 to 5 inches to fall overnight and Wednesday morning before the eastward moving storm moves out of the area. High temperatures across northcentral Montana should reach the low 30s Wednesday and near 40 on Thursday, he said.