More Rain: Meteorologist says more rain to come to area

With this year already the 12th wettest on record, meteorologists say Havre should expect more rain.

"At this point, we are expecting another slow-moving storm system to move in from the Pacific Northwest later this week,"  National Weather Service meteorologist  Keith Jaszka said. "It looks like, at this point, this Thursday through at least Monday of next week, we cannot rule out periods of rain showers."

The average for the area at this time of year is 8.97 inches of precipitation, Jaszka said.

The Weather Service recording station at the Havre City-County Airport reports 15.29 inches of precipitation has fallen there since Jan. 1, with the norm through Sept. 26 at that location 9.65 inches.

The station typically records a fraction of an inch more than 12 inches for the entire calendar year.

From June through August, which is defined as a meteorological summer, Havre received 5.6 inches of rain. The average summer precipitation is 4.94 inches, Jaszka said. This past summer was was the 46th-wettest on record.

Jaszka said the reason for the rain this summer was "primarily because a few weather disturbances tended to move eastward farther to the north across our region."

"So that favored wetter weather in our area compared to a lot of locations in southwest Montana, for example," he said.

While a good portion of north-central Montana has had a good, wet year, the western part of the state has not been so fortunate and not all of this region.

"But out toward Cut Bank, they have been given the abnormally dry designation," he said.

The wettest calendar year on record for Havre was in 1884. During that year, 25.67 inches of liquid precipitation were reported. Liquid precipitation includes snow and rain. As for the driest year on record, that happened in 1997, when only 6.62 inches of liquid precipitation fell.

Jaszka said the abundant precipitation this year does not necessarily provide any insight into what the winter is going to look like.