GREAT FALLS — Montana tied its warmest average overall temperature in 2015, according to weather data.
Statewide, the average temperature last year was 44.9 degrees, which was 3.8 degrees above the 20th century average, according to year-end data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
The 44.9 degrees tied the warmest average temperature set in 1934, Jake Crouch, a climate scientist with the NCEI, said.
The warm temperatures, combined with limited winter snowpack, contributed to summer drought and a severe wildfire season last year, Crouch said.
Southwestern Montana was particularly warm and dry in 2015, said Dave Bernhardt, a National Weather Service Meteorologist in Great Falls.
Dillon in Beaverhead County averaged 46 degrees in 2015, the warmest on record for that city, according to the Weather Service.
The community’s previous warmest average temperature was 45.2 set in 2012. Dillon also had its second warmest winter on record.
Average temperatures for the year in Helena (48.2) and Bozeman (45) were the second warmest on record.
“Along with that, there were a lot of record-high temperatures and a lot of those occurred during the winter and spring months in the southwest,” Bernhardt told the Great Falls Tribune.
Dillon had 22 record-high temperatures during 2015, and Helena, 18, he said
“To have that many record highs, that’s notable,” Bernhardt said.
For both northcentral and southwestern Montana, it was the warmest summer on record since 2007, which was a very warm summer, Bernhardt said.
The month of March for northcentral and southcentral Montana was the warmest in 30 years.
“Generally, when you get warmer conditions, you also get drier conditions,” Bernhardt said.
At Montana’s West Yellowstone, a gateway community to Yellowstone National Park in Gallatin County, the snowfall total last February was 4 inches, the lowest on record.
Dillon’s January 2015 precipitation of a trace tied the driest on record.
March precipitation in Great Falls was the second driest of record, and the driest since 1916, and the month of June was the city’s driest ever.
While the first half of 2015 was dry and warm, the second half brought an abrupt change and more precipitation.
The final four months of the year were the wettest four months of record for much of central Montana, Bernhardt said.
As a result, annual precipitation in Great Falls ended up at 15.69 inches, which is almost an inch above normal.