After a winter that has had a lot of snow and extreme cold snaps, there’s a lot of wishful thinking out there that Missoula may be due for an early spring.

Unfortunately, Punxsutawney Phil was right; there will be at least six more weeks of winter for western Montana.

Missoula's Recent Temperatures Have Been Average

KGVO News reached out to National Weather Service Meteorologist Trent Smith on Monday just to see if there might be a break for long-suffering Missoulians.

“For the next couple of weeks we're still kind of in this active pattern,” began Smith. “From the perspective of temperatures we’re kind of smack dab in the middle, right in the average of things occurring. If you actually take January's temperatures, we were average for the month of January. I know that there were some really hard cold spells and some nice warm ups, and I know we've been experiencing some nice warmer days. However, we haven't broken that magic 50 degree mark since November 1.”

Don't Put Your Winter Coat and Gloves Away Quite Yet

Smith said we all need to stay bundled up for the foreseeable future.

“I will agree that it has been kind of a longer winter because we really got that good cold spell in November,” he said. “But looking forward, unfortunately, I can't say that we're looking at any major warm ups coming anytime soon. We're kind of in this kind of active pattern where we'll get a few warmer days, like we just had yesterday and on Sunday where we'll get into the 40s but then we have another little weak disturbance coming through so that pattern is probably going to persist for another two to four weeks.”

In fact, Smith said some more winter weather is on the way to Missoula.

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Missoula Weather: Looking Ahead

“We have this weather system, this cold front coming in tonight, followed by kind of a polar front from the Northeast on Tuesday,” he said. “We'll get some nice warmer days for the latter part of the week, but then we have another disturbance for the weekend. There's even the potential of an Arctic air mass trying to make its way into our area of Canada in the Monday, or Tuesday timeframe.”

Smith said it’s a rinse-and-repeat cycle for the weather for the next few weeks.

“We'll just repeat that cycle where we'll just warm up and then get another little disturbance which is actually very typical of February and the first part of March. So we're kind of just in this nice active weather pattern, no major warm ups, no week of really clear conditions. It just looks like to be a fairly active pattern for us.”

Sorry, Missoula; grit your teeth and hang on as winter will be with us for a while longer, and imagine how grateful you'll be when spring does arrive.

Montana's Top 10 Record-Setting Wild Weather Events

Montana is named Big Sky Country for several reasons, not only grandiose Sunsets but impressive weather events as well! Ask any Montana resident who has scoffed at the idea of tossing a blanket or snow shovel in the trunk of the car ” just in case”. Here is a list of Montana's Top 10 Record-Setting Wild Weather Events

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