fbpx

Why Winter Feels Like Fall

By Beacon Staff

If recently it’s seemed like autumn – only with the vibrant reddish colors dulled to a rusty brown – you’re not confused about what time of year it is. You’re just seeing the result of a weird winter: the combination of an early cold snap in October that essentially froze leaves to tree branches, followed by a warm, snowless spell that kept the dead leaves in plain view.

With the ground covered in leaves, many western Montana residents will have extra yard work this spring. But the unusual weather also means something else that potentially has more concerning repercussions: snowpack levels and stream flows are low, and drought conditions are building in western Montana.

As of now, conditions are considered “abnormally dry,” the least worrisome level on the National Integrated Drought Information System’s drought monitor. But Ray Nickless, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s forecast office in Missoula, said expected snowfall for the remainder of winter doesn’t appear to be enough to ward off more dire drought conditions.

“There’s not a lot of moisture on the horizon really,” Nickless said. “We need the big systems to dump on us and we’re not really seeing that in our future at all.”

Regarding the possibility of a drought, Nickless said: “We could be heading that way.”

Even if snowfall picks up, Nickless said snowpack and stream flows will still be below historical averages, which doesn’t inherently signal a drought or fire season, but does pose problems for recreation, farming and perhaps aquatic organisms. Experts say it’s almost impossible to predict the summer fire season until the spring and early-summer rains fall.

According to a report by the National Weather Service, snowpack in the Flathead River basin was at 77 percent of normal in early February and stream flows in Flathead River were at 76 percent, and “dropping every day,” Nickless said. Nickless expects flows to be in the low 70s or possibly 60s by April, meaning low water levels for Flathead Lake in the summer.

Other western Montana streams have much lower flows, with the Bitterroot River at 57 percent of normal, the Lower Clark Fork at 62, the Upper Clark Fork at 64 and the Blackfoot at 65.

Low stream flows can lead to fish kill in lakes and, less frequently, in rivers, particularly if the weather gets hot. Fishermen and boaters will likely be affected.

“It’s not good,” Nickless said. “You like to see healthy stream flows going through the summer months, especially during the hot months.”

Corby Dickerson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the climate pattern known as El Nino is the main cause of the warm weather. El Nino developed in the Pacific Ocean and has altered jet streams, pushing storms to other parts of the nation, Dickerson said. Southern cities like Dallas and states on the east coast have been hammered by snow.

Winter temperatures have been one to two degrees warmer than normal, said Peter Felsch, a meteorologist along with Dickerson. But January was four degrees warmer and Felsch expects warmer-than-average temperatures over the next couple of months.

“It’s projected that it will continue through spring and into early summer, but after that it’s a question mark,” Felsch said.

In October, it seemed as if western Montana was headed the opposite direction, toward a cold and icy winter. Dickerson attributed the early winter conditions in October to an “arctic event,” in which a dry, cold mass of air pushed down from Canada and filled up the state’s western valleys. He said it was the second-earliest arctic event on record.

“We went from fall-like conditions to mid-winter conditions in a matter of 36 to 48 hours,” he said.

The conditions broke multiple weather records, Dickerson said, and disrupted the biological processes of many trees.

“The trees basically decided to go dormant and what happened is the trees never let go of those leaves,” Dickerson said.

Mike Baker, Kalispell’s parks and recreation director, said he has received numerous calls from residents wondering about the wellbeing of the leaf-covered trees in town. Baker said the trees aren’t in danger.

When the trees start to bud, Baker said, the buds will push the old stems off and form new stems. Spring should feel like spring, and the seasons will once again seem to be in order. But until it’s warm enough for cleanup, people will have to deal with masses of dead brown leaves.

“It’s one of those things that people aren’t really excited about,” Baker said. “It’s rather ugly.”