North Dakota weather still stuck in snow, cold cycle

25 May North Dakota weather still stuck in snow, cold cycle

Thursday, March 17, 2023
Bowman County Pioneer, Staff Report

North Dakota will be stay­ing under a white coat for a while longer and that may soon mean breaking a snow­fall record for at least one area of the state.

The Bismarck area is less than one foot shy of the record 101 inches set decades ago, with the rest of March and April re­maining in the regular snow season.

Most of the state, including Bowman, Slope and Adams county have also been hit by the recent snowstorms, with the weather combining for most of the region and the state hob­bled by No Travel advisories and warnings.

One recent storm literally closed the state from March 5 through March 7 and then again last weekend (March 9 through March 12).

“We went through quite an active stretch there,” Jeff Schild said Monday afternoon from the National Weather Service office in Bismarck. “It looks like the pattern should ease up some, but it looks like we have another system com­ing through late Wednesday and into Thursday. There may be a little additional snow and even some freezing rain in the area, but this one does not ap­pear as intense as what we have had moving through re­cently.

“Speaking for the Bowman area in southwest North Dako­ta, this last one (storm) was re­ally a tough one because what we had was an easterly wind blowing initially and then we had a little pause, with a quick switch to the west-northwest. It really made conditions de­teriorate on Sunday,” he ex­plained.

“We ended up with one that closed down more or less the whole state and was under a No Travel Advisory Sunday with multiple road closures.”

Some of the western parts of the state picked up four inch­es of snow and more over the weekend. “Grassy Butte had four inches of snow. Killdeer had 4.8, Heartbeat Dam (Grant County) had 5.4 inches …,” he said.

Bowman County got four inches over the weekend, Schild added.

As far as Bismarck is con­cerned, the region is closing in a new record. “It is sitting at 92.5 inches. Our record is from the 1996-1997 winter when we had 101.6 inches. We still have a lot of time for it to snow,” he said.

The weather will be turning colder over the weekend, he forecast. In Bowman, the day­time temperatures will be drop­ping from Tuesday’s high in the low 40s down to 10 degrees by Friday, then slowly warm again Saturday (15 degrees), Sunday (29 degrees) and Monday (30 degrees) then stay in the 30s for the rest of the upcoming week.

The nighttime temps will drop to sub-zero Friday and Saturday nights before starting to warm up again.