Recent thoughts on Townsend MT (and/or Helena area in general) (Billings: 2014, rent)

[NW Crow]

Anybody in or very familiar with Townsend MT have thoughts / info about anything new happening there in last few years?

Does the CD poster that moved there a few years ago have anything to say about their experience? (Lost track of the name.)

Interested in new businesses, rent for small houses, amount of population growth, major local government initiatives, etc. Looking at local paper but help would be appreciated. I know some basics and have passed thru a few times, but checking for more.

Also somewhat interested in any noteworthy general Helena news a local might pass along but got a better sense of that via its newspaper and visits.

[OneDawg]

Been thru the town a dozen or more times on the way to/from Helena. Population is up since 2000.
City of Townsend – Info about the City of Townsend

[NW Crow]

It reminds me of my nearest town in size and such (with the city down the road somewhat comparable to Helena); so there probably isn't much mystery. But I thought I'd ask for the chance something new was shared. Local paper is pretty limited. Maybe I'll call around there, if I feel like it.

[NW Crow]

Found the thread with the person who moved to Townsend, but she hasn't posted in years. So not counting on that.

I'll mention that low snow is an advantage imo. 23 inches per year and rarely over 40. The dryness is noticeable in summer. Tradeoffs. 20 mornings below zero per year but that goes with being in this part of the north country.

Distances from other cities are not that bad. Not tiny but not that bad for various occasions. Helena in commuting range for the willing (34 miles) or for other needs / wants. 64 miles to Bozeman, 82 to Butte. 150ish to Missoula, 120 to Great Falls. 205 to Billings.

Median hone price of $272k, modestly below current national average and well below some MT hot spots.

[MTSilvertip]

Townsend is a bedroom community for Helena.

There are still a few of the farmers and ranchers that made the community a great place, but mostly now it's just people that want cheaper taxes but work in Helena.
The schools are decent, the area is very nice, good hunting and fishing, lots of public ground too.

Don't let the stats fool you, it can be DAMN cold in Townsend. Canyon Ferry lake is a large body of water and when the wind comes over those miles of ice in the winter, it feels more like the Arctic than Montana.

[NW Crow]

Yes. 7 months of freezing on average at night / early morning. Winds do make it worse and certain storms will be really bad.

I live in pretty similar conditions. Slightly less occurrence / duration of -20 or less than Montana in record books. I haven't been below -20 to my memory, maybe a time or two, but -10 happens often enough.

Last winter, my lowest temp was -14 with a handful of -5 to -10 sprinkled around. Townsend I see had an 8 straight day stretch of -8 and under with -23 being worst. Only one stretch like that and not much more below zero. So, yeah, that is worth noting. A bit worse and could be even worse sometimes. -39 is Townsend's recorded low (early 90s). Not sure if or how often it has seen -30 in recent decades. I'd rather not be in -30 but it has happened / could happen again in Townsend. (My area got to -35 65 years ago. -21 16 years ago and maybe more recently.)

[MTSilvertip]

Montana has very little humidity, so folks here will be out on shorts and a hoody at +20 degrees. However, when it gets really cold, exposed skin can freeze in minutes. In February, 1979 where I was living near Bozeman it was -69. At -40 metal becomes brittle and you can break the latch on you car door shutting it too hard.

In the south there are heat indexes. The thermometer says one thing, conditions say another. Here we have wind chill. You can take a lot of cold as long as the wind isn't blowing and you're dressed properly.
Add in wind, it gets bad.

Last February where I live now it was only -29, but wind chill was -58. It stayed below 0 for nearly 3 weeks.

Montana gets some nasty wind. Winds in excess of 70 mph isn't uncommon, and it can blow for days.

Really hard on the heating bill.

[Reziac]

Well, I was last in Townsend in 2014, and I gotta say despite the growth between there and Helena, it's still a lot more rural-feeling and slow-moving than other formerly-similar small towns that have turned into bedroom communities, like Belgrade (or for that matter Laurel, where I find it kinda comical that all both major intersections get a daily 4pm traffic jam); however it's also rather more run-down. And while it can get bloody cold, whenever I've been through there in winter, which I used to do pretty regular, it's been a milder area, probably because of the river. Highway would be awful between Toston and Three Forks, and awful closer to Helena, but clear along through Townsend. OTOH it can fog up at night to where you can't even find the highway... and what Silvertip said about the wind off the lake. I remember one winter trip where from Townsend til I hit East Helena, I was driving with my right wheels in the piled snow from the plows to keep from getting blown into the other lane.

Back some years I did extensive comparisons of climate in various places, and tho Colorado is cooler overall than Montana, Montana winters are way more dramatic.

Occurs to me you might look the other direction, western Colorado or some of the more out of the way parts of New Mexico. Friend moved to Trinidad CO a few years ago and says it's pretty quiet, and snow is uncommon, tho once in a while they get enough to take a good picture.

[NW Crow]

Yes, there are lots of options.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by MTSilvertip

It stayed below 0 for nearly 3 weeks.

Yeah, one of these years we're gonna get winters again like the 1970s, where the thermometer never crawled above -20 for all of January, and sometimes didn't creep past -40. The problem with official records is they're often from recording stations in relatively sheltered places, which says nothing about anywhere else. Small towns tend to be less sheltered than the big cities. Out away from civilization... well, as you say.

There's a weather station on the Jefferson River that never records a winter temperature below +30F (not even when it's -35 a few miles up the road). And when I managed to get a look at the station itself... golly-gee, no wonder. It's six feet up from the river, where the water runs too fast to ever freeze.