Glasgow, Great Falls colder than Fairbanks, Alaska in February

Great Falls Tribune

Snow covers the Fred Robinson Bridge. February snowfall in Glasgow has eclipsed the record for snowiest month.

How cold has it been in northeastern Montana's Glasgow in February?

"We've actually been colder than Fairbanks, Alaska," said Ruth Ebert, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Glasgow. "I have some friends who live up there and they say, 'You guys are colder than us.'"

Prolific cold and snow have marked February in northcentral and northeastern Montana even rivaling the notoriously cold weather in the Alaska town.

For the record, the average temperature in Fairbanks for the first 16 days of the February was 5.9 degrees.

"And ours is minus 3.3," Ebert said of Glasgow.

For Glasgow, that's the second coldest February on record through the first 16 days of the month and the 9th coldest month overall.

The average temperature for Glasgow through the first 16 days is normally 26.3 degrees.

More:Great Falls receives around 7 inches of snow overnight, Cascade gets upwards of 10

Glasgow hasn't just been cold in February.

With 11 days left in the month, snowfall in the city already has broken the 67-year-old record for snowiest February on record.

The 6 inches of new snow in Glasgow over 30 hours since 6 a.m. Saturday pushed its monthly total to 24.4 inches as of 11 a.m. Sunday.

The old February record, set in 1952, was 22.4 inches.

Steam rises from an old church in Sweetgrass as the weather hovers at -7 degrees.

Now the snowy February of 2019 is making a run up the list of all-time snowiest months.

The record snowiest month in Glasgow came in January 2011, when 41.6 inches of snow fell on the city. That record was set in the city's snowiest season of record in 2010-11.

That record won't be broken, Ebert said.

However, the record for the third snowiest month in Glasgow, 28.8 inches set Jan. 31, 1916, has a chance of falling this year with two weeks remaining in February, Ebert said.

More:Average temp of zero begs question: What happened to chinook winds?

Great Falls has been pretty darn cold and snowy, too.

Ray Wardinsky shovels his sidewalk in Great Falls Friday. As of Sunday, 21.1 inches of snow has fallen in the city. Glasgow has that beat with its 24.4 inches, an all-time record.

As of Sunday, 21.1 inches had fallen on the Electric City, the 5th snowiest February on record.

The city's snowfall record for February is 32.6.

The average temperature through the first 16 days of the month in Great Falls has been zero degrees.

The average is 26.6 degrees.

The National Weather Service in Great Falls says February in Great Falls will likely end up as the second coldest on record barring a major warm-up.

The zero-degree average for the month-to-date in Great Falls also is colder than the 5.9-degree average in Fairbanks.