Category: weather
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February in the Rearview
February may be the shortest month, but holy cheese does it have some long weeks. Helena had nine days with winds above 20mph (33kph); and two of those days had gusts above 40mph (65kph). Sixteen days were below 0 (-17c). My home area received at least 20 inches (50cm) of snow. And we were cloudier…
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Winter Birding
Winter Birding It’s winter, and it’s been quite cold, but the birding has surprisingly good. The lack of leaves on the deciduous trees and bushes helps quite a bit. The warm fall allowed us to have open water will into January and that helped, too. Some birds are more visible in the Helena area in…
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A bit brutal, maybe?
February has been brutal. We are 17 days into the month and the average temp has been 4.8ºf. Let’s round it up and just say 5ºf (-15ºc). Last year’s average for Feb was 29ºf (-2ºc). Our low this year (so far) has been -18ºf (-28ºc). Eleven days left of Feb this year. If we’re going…
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February Freeze
Much of the country spent the last couple of weeks working through a cold snap. Montana has been no exception. Last weeks’ wekdays hovered in the mid single digits above and below zero. We also received about a foot of snow in the valley. So trails have been off limits. The Lab has a very…
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Cross Quarter Days
Today, Feb 2, 2025, is a cross-quarter day. That is, today is a day that sits about half way between a solstice and an equinox. There are four cross-quarter days of old, Samhain (Nov), Imbolc (Feb), Beltaine (May), and Lughnasa (Sep). The Library of Congress does a nice job of describing how old ways became…
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Wing Marks
The Helena valley has been seeing temps dropping into the single digits overnight and struggling to rise to much more than mid-20’s (around -6c) during the day. That’s not overly cold, but we’ve also been seeing dips into the single digits below zero (around -20c) every 7-10 days as well. When the cold goes below…
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Warming Thoughts
As the morning light slowly builds at the eastern edge of the Helena valley on this frigid January morning, I am inspired by these two quotes: In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world…
Nature, every day. 