Havre Daily not publishing today

Havre Daily News staff

In the midst of the heavy, wet snow falling Sunday afternoon, with the forecast predicting the snow to continue through today, the Havre Daily News decided not to put its carriers at risk with the weather and canceled today's paper.

The Havre Daily will publish again Tuesday.

The precipitation started Friday night, turning to snow that continued into Sunday.

The forecast Sunday had called for snow into Monday, but the precipitation tapered off late Sunday afternoon.

National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Nutter said Weather Service does not yet have a confirmed amount of snowfall in Havre, but has received reports of from eight to 12 inches of accumulation.

He said the Weather Service reporting station shows a five-inch snow depth at the Havre City-County Airport, but much of the snow compacted and melted as it fell.

He said Great Falls received 19.3 inches of snow, and Browning received 48 inches.

The governor declared a winter weather emergency for the state Sunday, and Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier and Pondera counties declared civil emergencies and asked that no one but emergency vehicles use the roads.

Nutter said Weather Service took note of the widespread damage from an early storm in the Havre area two years ago when a record-setting more than a foot of wet, heavy snow fell Oct. 2-3, sticking to leafy trees and power lines with the ice lodging doing significant damage and causing power outages from Chester to Malta, with more than 9,500 connections without power and it talking more than a week to restore power to some connections.

Weather Service made sure advance notice was out and some areas had crews ready to restore power quickly, he said.