Page 2 - Upper Yellowstone News Today

Amanda Eggert Montana Free Press This story is excerpted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis

PLUS: Just how bad is Montana’s snowpack?

A third of Montana’s basins posted record-low snowpacks as of Feb. 7.

At the beginning of January more than half of NRCS snow monitoring stations in Montana and surrounding river basins reported their lowest snowpack on record. The exception was the northern Flathead and Kootenai River basins in Montana where total monthly precipitation was near normal.

Natural Resources Conservation Service BOZEMAN - At the beginning of January, more than half of NRCS snow monitoring stations in Montana and

At the beginning of January NRCS more than half snow monitoring stations in Montana reported the lowest snowpack on record.As of Feb. 1 snowpack percentages wer

The cold snaps duration and bitterly cold daily high temps made it one of the most pernicious arctic blasts to grip the Treasure State. Although no all-time low temperature records were broken, many places set daily records for coldest lows on a given day, and daily records for the coldest high temps recorded on a given day.

At midnight Tuesday on Maverick Mountain, the whir of snowcats turning on to groom new snow marked the long-awaited start to the ski season.

There is still lots of winter left, but summer streamflows could suffer significantly if things don’t turn around.

The machines are hard at work, kicking up clouds of dust on the dried gravel and sediment as they play pick-up-sticks. They’re compacting the earth, hauling out literal tons of