BILLINGS — It’s official — it took more shoveling than usual to make it through winter. So far.
The National Weather Service in Billings reported on Monday morning that official snowfall (year to date) had reached 103.6 inches, creeping past the old record of 103.5 inches. By the end of the day, falling flakes had pushed the total up to 106.1 inches. That’s 8.83 feet.
Any snow that falls from now through June 30 will be added to the current total, a National Weather Service spokesman said Wednesday. The “new year” for measuring snowfall begins July 1.
Total snowfall in the Huntley area likely surpassed records as well, the spokesman said. The weather station at the Southern Agricultural Research Station east of Huntley on Highway 312 measured 80.4 inches through Wednesday.
The records from the Huntley station are incomplete for the snow season, since snow depth was not measured every day. But the 80.4 inches surpassed the annual total for every year since 1954, when record keeping began at the Huntley site, according to the National Weather Service spokesman.
It’s not an official record, he said, but a pretty good indication that this has also been the snowiest year at locations beyond the airport.
