Montana’s Snowpack is Playing Catch-up

Montana's mountains should receive some badly needed snow in the next few days, helping to rebuild the snowpack that has been depleted by the mild, wet weather.

Forecasts are generally indicating anywhere from 6 inches to as much as a foot and a half of snow may fall by the start of next week. That could be a big boost because most of the SNOTEL sites are showing spotty snow totals, which vary a lot between the various mountain ranges.

While the Beartooth Plateau shows some stations as high as 120% of normal snow water equivalent for mid-December, and totals look solid in the Little Belts and Snowy Mountains. But other ranges like the Tobacco Roots, Gravely Range, the Sapphires, Bitterroot Range, and other stations in the peaks of Northwest Montana show many locations with little more than half, and in some cases, less than half of the readings that would be normal at this point in the winter.

     ❄️ More critically, mid-level elevations had been showing mostly bare slopes or just a few inches of snow, going into the colder weather at the end of this week.

Gianforte declares another emergency

Less than 2-days after asking for federal help to help Libby with flooding that has caused millions in damage and threatened the city's water supply, Governor Gianforte is declaring another state of emergency to free up state aid in the aftermath of Wednesday's windstorm.

Ravalli, Wheatland, Mineral, and Flathead counties, as well as the cities of Hamilton and Harlowton, have enacted emergency declarations,s and city, county, state, and tribal personnel are working to remove debris. Additionally, the Montana Disaster & Emergency Services State Emergency Coordination Center is activated is expecting to receive declarations of emergencies from additional local and tribal jurisdictions as another winter storm cell continues to move through central and eastern Montana today.

Making headway on power outages

Northwestern Energy and other local utilities are getting a handle on the remaining power outages from the storm. The largest outage for Northwestern remains in Mineral County, where more than a thousand customers still didn't have power in the afternoon. The community was pitching in to set up a generator at the Town Pump in Superior so residents could access fuel.

Northwestern says over 35,000 customers had been restored 24-hours after the storm. 3300  customers in Missoula were still without power last night.

      Several hundred people were still dark in the Flathead, with about 2,000 still out in Libby last night.

Is Libby's water clean?

The City of Libby could get news today as to whether the city's water is safe for consumption after last week's floods.

Libby has been under a "boil order" since the record rains pushed rivers and streams over their banks. Part of the concern isn't just storm water, but whether the water supply may have been contaminated with heavy metals in a community that's faced nearly 30-years of coping with asbestos and other contamination.

Normally, the city tests for heavy metals every 9-years, and got a clean bill of health in the last two test cycles.

City employees hand-delivered water samples to the lab in Kalispell mid-week, but it takes up to 48-hours for the tests to be complete, so there could be some news today.

RELATED: Libby Faces Millions in Damage

Gusty winds in the east

More strong, gusty winds were continuing this morning across portions of Central Montana and the Rocky Mountain Front, but with nowhere near the velocity of Wednesday's storms. Gusts were hitting between 40 and 50 miles per hour in some locations last night. Truck drivers and others with high-profile rigs are being warned to delay trips along those north/south routes.

CSKT elects, and returns, tribal leaders

Veteran Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes leader Tom McDonald has been re-elected to another term on the tribal council. McDonald, who's serving as Vice-Chair and also Chair in the past, was one of 5-candidates who prevailed in the tribal election this week. Len Twoteeth and Carole Lankford were also re-elected, while Greg Dumontier and Jami Pluff beat incumbents.