Heavy snow in northwestern Montana on Friday closed side roads to all but emergency traffic and caused 25 crashes in the Kalispell region by 3:30 p.m.
The National Weather Service reported 13 inches of snow had fallen at the city airport in Kalispell, most of it between 5 a.m. and noon.
A rain and snow mix in the Missoula and Bitterroot areas rendered roads treacherous and backcountry travel downright dangerous.
Two avalanches forced temporary closure of U.S. Highway 93 south of Lost Trail Pass in Idaho.
U.S. Highway 12 was shut down 14 miles west of Lolo Pass in Idaho because of avalanche danger. The road is expected to remain gated until Saturday at least while an avalanche team from Boise assesses the situation.
Carrie Evans, a server at Lochsa Lodge, said the lodge was still accessible from the Montana side. Several lodgers from Idaho left on Friday after the New Year's holiday. Evans said they must have been planning to “go around,” either on Highway 93 south or through Missoula on west on Interstate 90.
Avalanche danger was high and getting higher for mountain regions throughout west central Montana above 5,000 feet, as heavy snow was deposited onto a very weak snowpack.
Snow slides, both natural and human triggered, are likely in the Bitterroots, Rattlesnakes, southern Missions and Swans near Seeley Lake, said Steve Karkanen of the West Central Montana Avalanche Center in Missoula.
“Expect conditions to worsen, especially in areas where snow turns to rain and where strong gusty winds load already overloaded slopes,” Karkanen said in his daily update at www.missoulaavalanche.org.
A broken cross arm on a power pole caused a midday power outage north of Interstate 90 in Missoula. Roughly 3,200 homes east of Grant Creek and in portions of the west and upper Rattlesnake Valley lost power at 11:24 a.m., according to Claudia Rapkoch, spokeswoman for NorthWestern Energy. Power was restored by early afternoon in most cases.
Kalispell roads in all directions were snowpacked and icy Friday.
“No major accidents, just lots of snow and blowing and many, many slide-ins,” a Flathead County sheriff's dispatcher said late in the afternoon.
Several stations across western Montana reported wind gusts of 40-50 mph, topped by Butte, which had a peak gust of 54 mph shortly after noon. Corvallis experienced a gust of 49 mph at 10:15 a.m., while it blew 48 mph for a short time in Avon. Missoula received a gust of 41 mph at 1:50 p.m.
Drivers on Highway 200 through Lincoln and beyond were faced with blizzard conditions. It was even worse east of the Continental Divide, where wind and subzero temperatures combined to drop wind chills to minus-31 in Great Falls early in the afternoon.
Highway officials warned of possible ground blizzards and severe driving conditions on Interstate 15 north and south of Helena, and a blizzard warning was issued for the northern plains of Montana.
Some of the cold air figured to seep over into the Flathead Valley overnight.
“Temperatures are going to drop pretty dramatically tonight,” said Trent Smith of the National Weather Service in Missoula.
The forecast was for near-zero readings in Kalispell and below that in West Glacier and Essex, Smith said.
What were puddles of slush during a warm day farther south were turning into icy patches in Missoula and other areas by nightfall Friday, making for a new round of dicey road conditions that will continue through Saturday morning.
Smith said western Montana will be in a “showery regime” through Saturday and most of Sunday before the next system moves in Sunday night. That one has the potential for another dump of heavy snow in the midst of warmer-than-average temperatures.
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Genoa Dickson wrote on Jan 2, 2009 10:44 PM: