Eastern Montana drought

[brockel]

Not good when you already have to put water down the hole to get the powder out in the first part of June. Bone dry from surface to 48” down. We REALLY need some rain

 

[JCS]

And the heat is coming

 

[brockel]

91 degrees right now. Suppose to hit 95. 100 degrees tomorrow.

 

[BirdManMike]

Its the entire state. Barely any snow left in the mountains - what is usually late June remaining snowpack in early June. Yellowstone River is going to peak this weekend, a full two weeks early and probably 10000cfs less than typical.

Eastern portion of state has it the worst, tho.

 

[Pagosa]

I drove from Kalispell to Broadus last weekend and the only section with good snowpack/runoff was in the Flathead valley. It was really dry from Clearwater Jct - Billings. Seemed to be better moisture from Hardin to Broadus, but it’s really dry, just green grass now that will be drying out in the next very weeks. Praying for rain.

 

[brockel]

I drove from Kalispell to Broadus last weekend and the only section with good snowpack/runoff was in the Flathead valley. It was really dry from Clearwater Jct - Billings. Seemed to be better moisture from Hardin to Broadus, but it’s really dry, just green grass now that will be drying out in the next very weeks. Praying for rain.

Broadus area has gotten a few more storms than we have for sure. They’ve been going north or south of us

 

[Sytes]

With the last series of rainy days, I figured there was hope though flipping the switch today it's 80*+, in the shade in Whitefish... If this keeps up, I bet we're in for nature's clearcutting...

Edit: ouch...

 

[IDFireLass]

Central Idaho is just as bad. We've had 1.03 of rain since the first of the year.
Get ready for a hot smoky summer again.
High fire danger in the Salmon/Challis forest already.

 

[hank4elk]

Looks like I have a couple days of clouds to dig up & fix some water lines before the June bake sets in for a week. 90's forecast for next week with no rain. Lucky I have water to soak the ground 1st....& the spring winds are gone.

 

[Nick87]

Sucks,bone dry here as well.

 

[Walkathon]

That's not good. It's my understanding that it really hurts the game bird populations as well. Hopefully the weather pattern shifts soon and you get rain out there.

 

[LukeDuke]

On our weather call with our climatologists now. Not looking good for eastern MT, Northeast WY, Dakotas and western MN the next 2-3 weeks. Going to be dry. Ridge needs to fall to the southern plains to drive some moisture into that area. Brutal.

 

[brockel]

That's not good. It's my understanding that it really hurts the game bird populations as well. Hopefully the weather pattern shifts soon and you get rain out there.

The pheasants get hit the hardest from my understanding. I worked for a guy in high school that pheasants forever would come out and put multiple guzzlers on his place for the pheasants

 

[Pagosa]

I have worked part time in eastern Montana from Alzada to Sidney since 2016 on pipelines, and have gotten to know several older ranchers, and they have told me that eastern Montana is in drought 4 years out of every 10 years. That is why they stockpile hay so much, like money in the bank, or they have to sell cattle.

 

[R.K.]

Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor

droughtmonitor.unl.edu

Was curious about what everybody is saying, so I checked the drought map- Not looking good.

Eastern Montana (particularly NE) isn't looking great, but good Lord...Hope nobody drew a glory tag for the Southwest US this year.