-7.1* in Miles City? Dang that IS cold. Just out of curiousity (sp) what's the coldest it's ever gotten to in Miles City?

I'm glad I'm up here in 40* Seattle.

I know of a day in 2005 when it got down to 17 below, and was told that that is warmer than usual. Heard that a 40 below day in the winter is not uncommon for this area, 17 below was cold enough....yikes.

I remember back in the late 70s when I lived there, Miles City would go 7 days in a row, and the temperature would never get above -20°F.

Those were the good old days.

December 24, 1983 must've been a bitter one in Miles City. The low temp for the day was -38F; the daytime high for the day was -25F.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/b...nter06.php

I remember walking (all of about 3 blocks) to high school one morning when it was in the -30's F range. Walking isn't exactly the correct term. I *ran* to school. I was never so glad to enter the hallways of CCDHS.

- Dave

I remember when I was just a kid (80's), growing up in Glendive, one Christmas it was like -44 and my dad had to go to work (oil field). I remember we used to have lots of snow, too. There were a few times (we lived a few miles out of town and I went to a country school) when mom walked my sister and I (both dressed in snowpants and warm gear) up to the mailbox to meet a carpool to take us to school!

Wow, David, considering I don't know you, talk about coincidence talking about that Christmas! LOL

Those of us who have survived a -30's kind of eastern Montana winter are kindred spirits, I guess, TK.

Come on..how many of you girls remember having to wear dresses to school with pants underneath? Then when you got to school you had to take off the pants before you could sit down in class? And just curious, I know a few, but how many really were dumb enough to stick their tongues to something metal? And willing to admit it now??

Monkey bars SHGS. It still hurts when I think about it.

"Then Schwartz pulled a slight breach of etiquette and skipped to the sinister triple dog dare. Sthuck, Sthuuuck... "

Currently -14!

It was -26 here east of Jordan last night. But that was nothin'; back when I was a kid...

In Glendive When I was a kid in the 60's we had one night my dad said the thermometer hit 47 below. We lived down by the river north of town. Anybody remember any colder temps from this area?

I have a picture of my thermometer at -30 something. I took the picture not to prove it was that cold, but so I wouldn't start doing the old ... I remember one time when it was -50 .

I'm with Gunnar,78-79 winter was a cold mother. i think it went thirty some days without going over 0 in Dec. 78 and Jan. 79. And we had snow and wind to go with it back then. I'm sure it will come around again when the winters are that cold. It could be global warming, personally I think it's a cycle, but man we've had some mild winters. I do believe the State record is around -60 actual temperature around the turn of the century (1900 that is).

-20* F here in Des Moines, today. Gorgeous blue skies, though.

I'm proud to have survived the 78-79 and 1983 sub-zeros there in MC. It's like a badge of honor.

I recall one Winter where it was -20/something (maybe a nighttime low of -30) and making this insane, mad-dash to the high school for morning classes. I was so glad I only lived two blocks away but I remember being so cold that I wanted to blurt out some kind of curse word but I was in too much pain/shock to form actual, intelligible words. An unnamed, but beloved teacher saw me dart in that back door and said "F'ing cold, isn't it!?"

All I could do was emphatically nod my head. Thank goodness someone could blurt it out for me - I was incapable of rational thought. I learned NOT to JUST wear a leather jacket all Winter that day. Went to Milos that night with my dad and bought a parka.



I also remember a time, when I was with MCFD, on a fire near Washington school. It was terribly cold - and we were all sweating like pigs and water was draining down parts of the upper floor on those of us below. I came out to swap out my air tank and one of the other guys flicked several icicles off me. I had ice connecting my hair to the inside of my nomex hood. Even the hose lines were embedded down into newly formed ice in the street.

Crazy winters. Just crazy.

Some time around Christmas in 1981 the thermometer at our house in Miles City read -52 F. I had to go to work, and it was hard to start my car even though it had 2 engine block heaters! I used to put ethanol from the Truck Stop in my car because it kept your gas lines from freezing up and it was cheaper than buying one of those little yellow bottles of "Heet".

When people ask me if it gets cold in Montana, I tell them about that temperature and add-"that isn't even with the wind chill factor figured in!" (When people ask me why I left to come to California, I think that story pretty much convinces them I wasn't crazy for leaving).

I remember as a kid walking from our house on S. Lake (about a block from Lincoln School) to Washington School on many, many mornings when it was 20 below. I think that was around a mile each way! We would duck into businesses to warm up-5 blocks to the Dry Cleaner on Pearl Street, 3 blocks then we'd walk through Parker's Bar (no one would stop us)1 block and we'd duck into the Library for a minute or two, then walk really fast those last 3 1/2 blocks to the school.

I don't want this to sound like one of those "old timer's stories" (you know that begin with "we walked 10 miles through blizzards/uphill both ways!!") but I don't remember getting a ride to school very often, even in the extreme cold.

The coldest (official) temperature ever recorded in Montana was -70° F. This record was set at Rogers Pass on January 20, 1954. That minus 70 still holds the record as the coldest temperature ever (officially) recorded in the Lower 48. The U.S. record for coldest temperature was set on January 23, 1971, at Prospect Creek Camp, AK, with an official reading of -80° F. So Montana has pretty good bragging rights when it comes to being cold.

Teddy Abbott (and other old timers in Eastern Montana) recalled reading in the paper that it hit 60 below (F) at Fort Keogh on January 14, 1887. That reading has never been accepted as "official" - I read something about it one time and there was some doubt as to the accuracy of the thermometer used to take the reading. Perhaps Amorette knows something more about this.

Just to balance things out - the (official) record high temp for Montana is 117° F set at Glendive on July 20, 1893, and at Medicine Lake on July 5, 1937. But as hot as it was in Montana last summer, maybe there'll be a new record when they get the data tabulated.


There're some good climate / weather data sets and narratives here:
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/CLIMATEDATA.html

Growing up in Miles City during the 30's and 40's the schools were not closed until it got to 30 below zero and there were very few parents driving their kids to school. Jan 20th of 1954 when the record low for the lower 48 was set at Rogers Pass at minus 70 degrees I seem to recall it hitting 57 below in Miles City. We moved back East a couple years later. The lowest I've ever seen here in Connecticut is 8 below and that was in the early 60's.
I sure do enjoy the Miles City Web Site. I'm going to see if I can get someone to start one up for Middletown, CT., as there is a tremendous amount of history that could be shared. Keep up the good work.

Boiling water at 45 below (Fairbanks, Alaska)
http://www.youtube.com/wa...k_ATM&NR=1

Hot coffee at 40 below (Fairbanks, Alaska)
http://www.youtube.com/wa...6cH_WA_6oI

When Brian Thome married Valarie Stone on Christmas Eve, 1983, I believe the temperature was 43 below. But it was a still, sunny morning and a pleasant walk to the church. Inside the church actually seemed colder because we were not in the direct sunshine.

And, yes, in extreme youth, I once stuck my tongue to a frosty metal railing. Nobody dared me. It was my own stupid idea. The frost looked tasty to me. While a group of wise mothers headed into a kitchen to get warm water to pour over my tongue, some unwise father declared, "No need for that. Just pull." He pulled. I came away from the railing. A large part of my tongue stayed behind.

When my Mom told me about her drive home from town in a blizzard and going in the ditch 3 times and how it was still 10 below zero at 2 PM on Saturday I almost didn't have the heart to tell her it was 62 degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky here.

As for the sticking your tongue to a piece of metal, my younger brother did that in my presence and saved me the trouble of having try it myself.

It's not the -40F that gets me. It not the 106F in the summer either. It's the days we have where the temperature swings 100 degrees at a time. I don't recall what year it was, sometime since 1992, but we went from somewhere around 32 below to nearly 70 above within 24 hours. That's pretty drastic. I've seen it go the other way, but it usually takes a couple days on the down turn.

I think I heard somewhere that at one time miles City had the record for change in temperature in a 24 hour period. Miles city also holds (held) the record for snowflake size.

Years ago the old KATL radio area or someone in town was the "offical" temperature reading. Now days the "offical" reading is at the airport.
As all of us know there is a big difference sometimes between the airport and in the city limits. Miles City probably will never be able to be the coldest or hottest spot like it did at one time.

Wikipedia contradicts itself on the temperature extreme thing. Both candidates are in Montana though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...2C_Montana

From January 23, 1916 to January 24, 1916, the temperature [in Browning, MT] fell 100°F (56°C) from 44°F (7°C) to -56°F (-49°C). This is the United States record for the greatest temperature change in 24 hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...e_extremes

The largest recorded temperature change over a 24-hour period occurred on January 15, 1972 in Loma, Montana, when the temperature rose from −54 °F (−47 °C) to 49 °F (9 °C).

LOL!!! I dont quite remember that winter,78-79, but I was just a baby (all of 4 yrs old).
The temp right now in Des Moines is 7, feels like -7. Personally, I think if it feels like -7 it is -7!!!!

I was in the AirForce in tx in 78/79 and came home to Ekalaka for Christmas my Mom took me to Rapid City to catch a plane back to SanAnton on the 28th of Dec she got home to the ranch and the road to Ekalaka was closed for 30 days, my brother would ride in 30 miles on a snowmobile on Monday for school and come home on Friday with mail and other stuff that he could hall on his machine that was a good year to be in Tx lol. I have seen many time where the low at night was in the -30's at the ranch.

I remember a time in the late 1960s when returning from my husband's family home in Cleveland, Ohio, after our engagement that Christmas. We were traveling by train and I got the Hong Kong Flu...think that was winter of 1968 because we married in June of the following year, 1969. We were returning to Montana State where we were students and neither has ever forgotten that trip. We had a layover in Chicago because of weather and I slept on the benches at the station and later on the train, with extreme fever, etc., from the Flu. Then somewhere in North Dakota, the train's engine froze up and it took an additional 24-hours to thaw and move us into the Bozeman area.

When we got to Bozeman, I recall that the temperature did not get above -20 degrees for about 10-14 days, although I could be incorrect.

And we had classes every day. The snot and tears in our eyes froze as soon as we walked outside and the screech of the snow when walking on it was worse than chalk screeching on a blackboard.