It's official: Havre, Mont., has country's worst winter

This is the winter that people along Montana's Hi-Line and Rocky Mountain Front will tell their grandchildren about.

A Weather Channel story "The 5 Worst Winter U.S. Cities of 2017-18 May Surprise You" ranked Havre's 2017-2018 winter as the worst in the country.

Havre beat out No. 2 Montecito, Calif., which had fire, rain and a mudslide within a month.

Still Havre "won by a landslide" with 82.6 inches of snow, 4 feet more than the city's average winter snowfall.

The Weather Channel highlighted the 13 inches of snow that fell Oct. 2-3 and knocked out power as "only an appetizer" for what came next: a snowy December, January, and especially, February.

In just more than two weeks in February, the National Weather Service issued five blizzard warnings for the Rocky Mountain Front.

Havre's snowiest winter saw 93.4 inches fall in 1980-81. The city only has 10 inches to go by June 30.

"We're not closing the book on the season snowfall record yet," said Jim Brusda, lead meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Great Falls.

Oh, and more snow is expected Friday and early next week in northcentral Montana.

January and February were snowy in Havre, but February was the "back-breaker," Brusda said.

It might be the shortest month, but it didn't feel that way.

Havre's 31.8 inches of snow in February meant an average of more than an inch a day. Havre usually gets just under 6 inches of snow in February.

Havre's average snow depth for February was 20.4 inches, just under the record of 20.9 inches in 1978.

However, the snow stuck this year.

Havre had more than 20 inches of snow on the ground for 42 days in a row. The previous record was two weeks, also in 1978.

"On Feb. 1, the snow depth was down to four inches, but by Feb. 28, it was 25 inches. The problem is that snow depth of more than two feet lasted well into March. Only March 16 did it drop below 24 inches," Brusda said.

"That's what's making this winter so difficult," Brusda said. "That amount of snow is hard on structures (and, we'll note, shovelers' backs). That's a lot of weight for seven weeks. That's what's made this winter unique."

A building in Harlem to the east of Havre collapsed under the snow's weight.

Havre still has six inches of snow on the ground.

"There's a lot of water in those six inches," Brusda said. "That's a big flooding concern, and the ground is still frozen."

In March, Havre "only" has had 4.3 inches of snow.

Between the cold and the snow, this winter beats the winters of the late 1970s "that they refer to as those very bad winters. This has been worse," he said.

Oh, yeah, it's been cold, the seventh coldest winter in Havre since records started. The average daily temperature was 8.6 degrees.

On Dec. 18, a cold front came to Havre.

It hasn't left.

The average February day in Havre this year was 1.5 degrees — 20.7 degrees below normal. (The record coldest February was 12.8 degrees below zero daily average in 1936.)

On Feb. 12, the Wild Horse border crossing north of Havre was 46 degrees below zero.

RELATED: End of Winter? Not so fast Montana

Meanwhile, Glacier National Park has seen 50 feet of snow in some places. Snow pushed Browning, Babb and Heart Butte into crisis mode.

Miles City in southeastern Montana has been battling cold and snow, too. The city has had 42 days in a row colder than normal. February set a cold record. Only Valentine's Day was hotter, barely, than average since January 30.

RELATED: 108 degrees today? If not, Miles City sets record