Montana winters (Billings, Missoula, Great Falls: appointed, houses, living)

[Bufford]

Where in Montana has the mildest winters? The least snow? Not much wind? More sunshine in the winter? Thanks for the help in advance.

[seven of nine]

Rule out the eastern side
There is a banana belt, Libby but it has its own particular issue, good luck.

[rickers]

Some of the mildest winter areas as far as temps go also seem to get a lot of snow such as the low elevation parts of western Montana. Along with that come dreary winter skies. The part of Montana where I dwell has tons of sunshine most of the year but it can get extremely windy at times. The winter temps in my area can be much colder or much warmer than western Montana depending on where the wind is coming from. It can range from 35 below zero to 60 above during the winter. Summer can be very hot, windy and dusty or perfect, you can never tell what it's going to do from one day to the next. The west side of the Rockies in the summer can be wonderful but when fire season starts the air fills with nasty smoke. Much of the smoke actually comes from neighboring states to the west and southwest as well as from fires burning in Montana. Here are a few pics from Montana.
#1 - driving down a dirt forest service road west of the divide.
#2 - A view over the countryside in western Montana.
#3 - My only ride, an 85 Toyota parked out back in Conrad Montana.
#4 - Prickly Pear Cactus in North Central Montana near Lake Elwell.

[Bufford]

Originally Posted by rickers

Some of the mildest winter areas as far as temps go also seem to get a lot of snow such as the low elevation parts of western Montana. Along with that come dreary winter skies. The part of Montana where I dwell has tons of sunshine most of the year but it can get extremely windy at times. The winter temps in my area can be much colder or much warmer than western Montana depending on where the wind is coming from. It can range from 35 below zero to 60 above during the winter. Summer can be very hot, windy and dusty or perfect, you can never tell what it's going to do from one day to the next. The west side of the Rockies in the summer can be wonderful but when fire season starts the air fills with nasty smoke. Much of the smoke actually comes from neighboring states to the west and southwest as well as from fires burning in Montana. Here are a few pics from Montana.
#1 - driving down a dirt forest service road west of the divide.
#2 - A view over the countryside in western Montana.
#3 - My only ride, an 85 Toyota parked out back in Conrad Montana.
#4 - Prickly Pear Cactus in North Central Montana near Lake Elwell.

Thank you Rickers. That was a big help. Nice pictures!

[Jillaceae]

I was actually very disappointed with the lack of snow is Missoula when we lived there. We got a lot of light dustings, but nothing that really stuck around for too long.

[elliottmew]

I read somewhere online that Missoula is something like the 7th least windy city in the U.S. We really don't get windy days very often.
However, we do get very cloudy/gray days often.

I grew up in NorthEastern Montana, and the winters there are brutal compared to Missoula/Western MT. Eastern Montana, especially NorthEastern Montana is very snowy and very windy. Ick.

[magoomafoo]

Originally Posted by Jillaceae

I was actually very disappointed with the lack of snow is Missoula when we lived there. We got a lot of light dustings, but nothing that really stuck around for too long.

You can have some snow from Lincoln. I'm pretty sure I will have snow hills in my yard 4th of July.

[magoomafoo]

Originally Posted by elliottmew

I read somewhere online that Missoula is something like the 7th least windy city in the U.S. We really don't get windy days very often.
However, we do get very cloudy/gray days often.

I grew up in NorthEastern Montana, and the winters there are brutal compared to Missoula/Western MT. Eastern Montana, especially NorthEastern Montana is very snowy and very windy. Ick.

Livingston, Great Falls, Billings, now those are windy places. I never considered Missoula to be windy.

[rickers]

View from our rig's shotgun seat, driving over Evaro hill coming back from Missoula for groceries, We've done this so many times we couldn't count the trips. We're going 45 mph in 4 wheel drive, Yee haw ! Ya gotta love winter, it separates the scared from the crazy !

[grizzfan]

One of the mildest places in Montana is at the confluance of the Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers in NW Montana. Not much there but you will notice quite an industry growing vegetables in hot houses. The town of Paradise is near there, (a couple of bars only) and a few miles further west is Plains - a nice little town.