News Now

This Week's Headlines + Conversation with National Weather Service

• Season 1 • Episode 5

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Taylor chats with a meteorologist from the National Weather Service forecast office in Missoula who gives us a sneak peak at their upcoming Summer Outlook Report and tells us about what trends they've seen for northwest Montana spring and summer over the past few decades. 

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[Music] Thank you. Hello and welcome to Daily Inter Lake News Now. I'm your host, Taylor Inman. We're taking a look at some of last week's biggest headlines and what's coming up for the Flathead Valley this week.

For our deep dive segment, I'm chatting with meteorologist Dave Noble with the National Weather Service in Missoula, who gives us a preview of their summer outlook report and what kind of weather is coming our way.
But first, here are some headlines:

The Flathead Warming Center closed its overnight shelter operations on Sunday, wrapping up its busiest winter season ever where it served more than 350 people. The shelter provides 50 beds at its North Meridian Road facility for those in need from October through April.

Director Tanya Horn described the past season as a roller coaster ride, with an influx of 73 new volunteers. She attributed the bump in community involvement to a letter issued by Flathead County Commissioners criticizing the shelter and other Valley nonprofits.

The January letter described the Warming Center and other social service providers working to address homelessness in the area as exacerbating the problem. The commissioners said that charities were enabling a homeless lifestyle and called on residents to stop supporting such organizations.

Although the 354 individuals who slept at the shelter over the course of the colder months represent only a slight uptick from the previous year, Horn said that demands each day were much higher than they'd previously seen. The shelter had to turn away people 364 times to avoid overcrowding this winter, nearly double the amount from the previous season.

First responders brought people into the shelter on an emergency basis 149 times, according to shelter statistics. Starting next week and extending through the summer months, the Warming Center will offer services on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the daytime from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Guests will still be able to shower, eat, do laundry, and access social workers and computers.
Horn thinks that Kalispell residents will notice an uptick in homeless people on the streets in the coming months, in hopes that they will realize the value of having an emergency shelter in the city.

 The Flathead County Animal Shelter is at capacity and is encouraging adoptions by waiving fees. Flathead County Public Information Officer, Kim Geiser, said in an email that the shelter has been teetering on reaching capacity for a while. It is a no-kill shelter that currently has 42 dogs and no open kennels. Animal shelter officials have reported more people surrendering their dogs due to rising costs, such as food and medicine for pets. They are grateful people would rather surrender than totally abandon their pets. For a limited time, the shelter is waiving its $100 adoption fee. There will still be a $45 charge for a lifetime county license. Adopted dogs and puppies have their vaccinations, age-appropriate heartworm tests, parasite prevention, sterilization surgery, microchip implants, and a free veterinary exam certificate for participating clinics. For more information about the shelter, the dogs, or adoption, call the shelter at 406-752-1310. See photos of adoptable pets online at the shelter's website.

Galvanized by a controversial development that is nearing completion despite deep community opposition owing in part to a lack of regulations, Lakeside residents are attempting to zone a portion of the unincorporated town and the surrounding residential area in conjunction with the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Department. Residents involved with the Upper West Shore Alliance recently held two informational meetings about efforts to zone part of the community. Concerns about zoning took off during the course of last year, spurred on by the news of the development of an Alpine Coaster just north of Lakeside on US-93. The coaster property is unzoned, like the majority of Lakeside. At that meeting, County Planning and Zoning employees recommended residents reference the Lakeside neighborhood plan, created in 2010, as a way to expedite the process to secure zoning, which can take around two years.

The area they are specifically looking at zoning starts at Spring Creek Road and goes south to Bernie Creek Road, extending westward to around Deer Creek Road. Marty Sunday, who helped organize the meetings and was elected to the Lakeside Community Council this week, said the campaign to secure zoning is a result of neighbors deciding to take action. They studied the rules, they showed a lot of support, and together they noticed the pattern here, and that worked. So, what we were advised to do if we wanted to go faster and not start all over again like a two-year process is to take what everybody remembers as this original Lakeside plan and try to see if people wouldn't consider zoning what you see that's not yellow, he said. They are already starting the process of gathering names and addresses of residents and getting their opinion about what zoning and designation they think their lot would fall under, like residential or commercial, for example. 

It's necessary for the process of creating new zoning, which will be completed when the proposal eventually goes before the Flathead County Commissioners. For more information about zoning in Lakeside, contact the Flathead Planning and zoning department at 406-751-8200. The website also contains information about zoning data in Flathead County, and zoning regulations, among other pertinent resources. Read those full stories at dailyinterlake.com. Now it's time for our deep dive segment, and this week, I'm chatting with the National Weather Service meteorologist for the Missoula office, Dave Noble, who is giving us a sneak peek at an upcoming report that looks at what weather conditions are predicted for the summer. I'm on the phone with Dave Wright now, who's been putting together the summer Outlook report. 

What kind of predictions are we seeing for the rest of spring and for summer, Dave?

Well, you know, I just want to start off with this past winter was a pretty chilly one, especially like, you know, November into January. And this is our last La Nina of three, and so we were getting out of La Nina and quickly transitioning into El Nino. There's a 63% chance of El Nino developing by the summer, that comes from the Climate Prediction Center out of the East Coast. And they're also saying that May could be leaning towards warmer than average, and with an equal chance for below or above-average precip. And looking into June and going into July, the Climate Prediction Center is also saying it's meaning 33 to 40 percent milder for Northwest Montana and 40 to 50 percent leaning below average.

Um, so, and then, so that's like the overall prediction from the Climate Prediction Center. When you look at the drought conditions, the drought monitor just came out with their new addition today, and now they're labeling Northwest Montana, especially Flathead County and portions of Eastern Lincoln County, in a severe drought. So, severe drought conditions and then moderate drought conditions elsewhere in Western Montana. Yeah, we're getting some good rain right now, but we'll need more to get out of those drought conditions. 

I know what the warm spell we just had, I was considering going ahead and planting some more stuff in my garden, especially since last year we didn't even start planting until June. 

Yeah, you know, last spring was one of the coldest springs on record for Kalispell, Northwest Montana, and I believe some of that had to do with La Nina. It was actually so cold that the bees were sleeping when they should have been working, and some of the cherry blossoms were not able to get pollinated in time through Mother's Day because it was so cold. You know, bees need I think temperatures above 53 degrees to work, and they saw a lower yield of the cherry crops last year because of that. But this year, when you look at the data, I looked at some of these transition years to El Nino, and 10 out of 14 Mays were drier than average, and there was 10 out of 14 were warmer. 

"So, for May, which is kind of interesting, we don't really have much research right now for correlating the El Nino for the summer, but so I'm just purely looking at the data, and the data would also suggest June for Kalispell, which is our wettest month of the year, 11 out of the 14 so-called transitions to El Nino were drier than average, and nine out of 14 were warmer, so that kind of matches the Climate Prediction Center's outlook, potentially for that drier and warmer June. Could you really quickly explain El Nino and La Nina? Sometimes ocean water temperatures in one region can get above average, and that above-average water temperature can really offset the energy balance, causing the atmospheric circulations to be different."

"So, in El Nino, the ocean waters and the equatorial Pacific between the Dateline and South America are usually above average, so you have all that warmer-than-average water, it likes to rise quicker. You know, if it has more buoyancy, you have moisture getting injected into the atmosphere. So you have more thunderstorm activity, especially you can see that in Peru. You can also see it along the Equator. You have the opposite, you have cooler than average temperature water, but along that from Dateline to South America, that suppresses thunderstorm activity. And so if you're into El Nino this year, and if you look at a sea surface temperature anomaly map right now, it's looking pretty El Nino, with a really warm anomaly right off the coast of South America. I mean, it's very, I mean, your eyes are just drawn to it. Wow, look at that, you know. And then the other side of the coin is, on the western side of the Pacific, the waters are also warmer than average, and that could actually mean more typhoons potentially this year, and that could actually affect our weather, and I could tell you more about that later in some of your other questions. 

Yeah, we hear those terms every year, but it gets confusing about what they mean, so thank you.

So, what are some overall trends that you guys have seen for spring and summer, either anecdotally or from some reports that you guys have?

You know, looking at the data, tourists have been trending cooler, slightly cooler since the 90s. And also for precipitation, we've seen an increased trend for the spring months since the 1970s. And I would say that some of the different phases of the El Nino La Nina oscillation can help explain some of that variance. And like we said before, last year Kalispell had the coldest spring of record, and that was happening during the La Nina sort of pattern, you know. For the summer, we've seen a slight increase in the frequency of 80-degree or warmer days since the late 90s, especially for the Flathead Valley. And there's been a slight increase in the frequency of 90-degree days or more or warmer since the late 90s. But when you look at the data back in the 60s and 70s, there was another uptick in the frequency of 90-degree days or warmer, which is kind of interesting to see. And then for summer, there's been a drying trend since the mid-1990s across Northwest Montana. When you look at the overall temperatures, there's been a slight warming trend since the early 90s across Northwest Montana.

How do cyclones and typhoons in the Pacific affect the weather up here in El Nino years?

The water temperatures along the equatorial Pacific are warmer, and so what that does is it causes tropical cyclones to develop sooner and further east. You know, well either the Philippines towards the Dateline and these typhoons can actually get stronger and become super, super typhoons. And they can, you know, almost equivalent to like a category five hurricane in the Atlantic. Sometimes they will recurve north of Japan and move up towards the Bering Sea, and sometimes move all the way around towards Alaska and North America."

And what those typhoons do sometimes, if they can phase with a, you know, low-pressure system coming out of Siberia or China, is that they can really strengthen the jet stream and wiggle the jet stream downstream and cause it, kind of, causes these hot bridges sometimes can develop over us. And a perfect example, in 2015, we had an unusually active tropical cyclone or typhoon season already, and they were already messing up the jet stream downstream. Well, it caused a really hot bridge to develop in the western U.S., and Kalispell had its warmest June on record in 2015. And later that year, El Nino really developed in Gusville. So, those tropical cyclones, cause a suggestion to wiggle. We had our hot ridge. I think Castle got up to 102 on June 28th of 2015, and then that ridge kind of retrograded into July. But there were still a lot of typhoon activities in July, but what that did was it caused this low to come out of Alaska and basically sit right over California for a few days, and that system caused our area to have increased fire activity or increased lightning activity which caused new fire starts. You know, when you look at the 2015 season as a whole, like that, that right there, that week, week and a half of thunderstorms, dry and wet thunderstorms, you know, if we didn't have that, our fire season wouldn't have been as an impressive in 2015.

Is there anything interesting about spring and summer weather up here that I haven't mentioned yet that you want to talk about? It can be kind of broad. You know, and sometimes, you know, if we look at the data, sometimes there are things that pop out at you. So, for me, when I looked at the data for Northwest Montana, you know, some of the things that I saw were that you know, May and June, of these transitions at El Nino Years, a lot of them were warmer and drier. But then when you get into July and August, it was pretty impressive in August, 10 out of the 14 transition years were wetter in August and actually cooler than average. 

You know, and I think some of that shows up in some of the correlation data. We look at other correlation maps where they're trying to correlate the Enzo or the El Nino with it, and some of it does show potential for increased thunderstorm activity in July and August. But then when you look at the data beyond that, like August and September, August, there were wetter, September, I was split down the middle, and then October, it was showing cooler and drier, and then November was showing drier. And then, our El Nino winters are typical and can be drier than average and maybe like low snowfall, especially in the valleys. So, I think that's when the atmosphere starts feeling the effects of El Nino, I think for us, it means the potential for, you know, drier spring, late spring, and potential for maybe some thunderstorm activity in the middle of the summer, so we could potentially have a fire season, especially with if there are existing drought conditions. And, but then what I'm seeing in the data is that some of these transition years, sometimes we can get these cold fronts coming out of the west that can really not stop the fire season but or halt the fire seasons by maybe dampen things a little bit, so things are not burning as fast.

"Uh, you know, some of these transition years I'm seeing the data, uh, even multiple, uh, weather crops coming out of the West that could, uh, be a sign for you know, uh, not as busy fire season towards the tail end. 

Well, it's all right. Um, the Summer Outlook report will be posted to the National Weather Service in Missoula's YouTube channel towards the end of this month. So Dave, thank you for your time. Noble said their report will be posted to YouTube and other social media pages towards the end of May. To see past climate and weather data, current reports, and more, check out the National Weather Service Missoula forecast office website. 

The Daily Inter Lake is online and in your community reporting on what's happening in the Flathead Valley. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to see the latest, and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel to never miss a News Now or SportsNow podcast episode.

Here's a look at what events are coming up this weekend: a tea party and a tour of the historic Conrad Mansion are happening to celebrate Mother's Day. Tea times will be at 11 A.M. and 2 P.M. on both Saturday and Sunday. Guests will be treated to a tour of the entire Conrad Mansion while learning about Kalispell's founding mother, Letty Conrad. Attendees are encouraged to dress in tea party attire. The Tea Party and tour are limited to 32 people per time slot and will last about two hours. Reservations are required. Tickets are $45 dollars per adult and $30 per child and are available for purchase by calling 406-755-2166.

The first-ever card show is taking place in the valley at the Flathead County Fairgrounds this weekend as well. There will be tables of treasures from sports cards to TCG products. They will also have coffee and donuts available. This event is set for every age and collector and takes place Saturday and Sunday beginning at 9 A.M. Find live music, art classes, and everything going on in your community by visiting our online events calendar. For organizers and business owners out there, it is super easy and free to post your events at dailyinterlake.com/events.

Thanks for joining us. News Now is a new podcast from The Daily Inter Lake. We're proud to be the largest news-gathering operation in the region and the oldest newspaper in the valley. Consider becoming a subscriber to support our work. Call circulation at 406-755-7018 or go to the manage subscription tab on the top right corner of our website. Everybody stay safe and have a great week."

People on this episode

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Mellissa Wells

Host
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Taylor Inman

Host