GREAT FALLS
Great Falls
Great Falls broke a 100-year-old daily snowfall record for March 4 Sunday as heavy snow blanketed a large portion of Montana.

Seasonal snowfall in the city is now almost 3 feet above normal.

As of 5 p.m., 5.1 inches of snow had fallen Sunday in the city, breaking the former daily record of 4 inches for March 4 set in 1918.

"We already broke that record," Weather Service meteorologist Roger Martin said at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, when snowfall in Great Falls was steady but slowing down.



Official snowfall measurements are taken at the Weather Service office on Tri-Hill Road on the city's southwestern edge.

Snowfall amounts of 6.5 inches were reported on the eastern edge of Great Falls.

Snowfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches were common throughout northcentral, southwestern and southcentral Montana, Martin said.

A few places in Yellowstone and Stillwater counties in southcentral Montana had received 5 to 10 inches, Martin said.

Communities just east of the Continental Divide such as Browning, which have received record snowfall amounts this year, missed out on this round of snow, Martin said.

Great Falls had received 73.1 inches of snow from July 1, 2017 through Saturday, March 3, the current snow season.

The normal snowfall for the season through March 3 is 41 inches.

Record snowfall in Great Falls for an entire snow season, from July 1 through June 30, is 120.2 inches set in the winter of 1988-89.

No snowfall is forecast for this week when temperatures will rise above freezing and the sun will be out. Melting will occur during the day, with refreezing occurring at night, Martin said.

That will create the potential for black ice, Martin said.

February snowfall in Great Falls was 32.6 inches.

That tied the all-time February snowfall record set in 2011.