No Flooding – ‘Just a Good Soaking Rain’ In Western Montana – More Rain To Come

It's so unusual these days for Missoula to receive a heavy rain, that KGVO contacted the National Weather Service Office in Missoula to see if Tuesday's rainfall may have caused any problems in the Missoula area.

Meteorologist Lance Van den Boogart just laughed, and said, 'It's just a good soaking rain'.

"By about noon today, the Missoula airport had received about .28 of an inch of moisture," Van den Boogart said. "That's a little over a quarter of an inch here at the airport. We're seeing higher amounts in central Idaho moving towards the Missoula valley, and with this system moving through, we could see a little more than that."

Van den Boogart said the temperatures were cool enough at higher elevations to produce some snow above the 6,000 foot level.

"Even though that snow will rapidly melt, it's good to know that more snow is falling in areas where the snowpack has already melted off," he said. "Today's rain won't cause rivers or steams in Missoula to rise, but there could be what is called 'ponding' around sewer grates in the area."

Van den Boogart said Missoula will probably have more of the same in the next few days.

"We have a low pressure area spinning over to our west pumping some moisture up from the southwest, and we're going to see more of that tomorrow," he said. "So, what we've seen today, we'll probably see for the rest of the week."