Winter In Montana Primo Golfing Weather This Year - Year 7 Of Drought

[hatrack]

A few weeks ago during a stretch of winter that is typically the coldest and whitest in southwest Montana, local golf pro Jed Slocum looked out with amazement at Valley View Golf Club's bare fairways in Bozeman, then joined friends for a round on the links. Normally, the snow doesn't clear from this golf course until April.

I've lived here 12 years and I can't remember another time when you could golf in January, let alone do it in short sleeves," Mr. Slocum says of the weird anomaly of being able to tee up here before Super Bowl Sunday. "Winters in Bozeman are supposed to be about skiing deep powder in the mountains."

A golfer's delight, however, may be portending smoke-filled skies, desperate ranchers, and the cancellation of fishing when real summer actually arrives three months from now, experts say. Montana, now in its seventh consecutive year of extreme drought, has experienced warmer and drier weather on several days in January and February than the deserts around Phoenix.

"The public perception, because of all the flooding in Arizona and California, might be that things out West are better, moisture wise, but for the northern half of the region, that's not true," says Michael Hayes, a climate impacts specialist at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb. "In fact, conditions have gotten worse and in some cases markedly worse."

EDIT

Although it's only March, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer this week offered a grim prediction that he expects massive wildfires to rage this summer. He's asked the Pentagon to consider redeploying 1,500 National Guard troops from Iraq to instead be made available for firefighting that some experts believe could be as intense as the summers of 1988 and 2000 when millions of acres burned. During those years, millions of additional acres of national parks and national forests in the West were closed down to prevent fires, hamstringing the livelihoods of dude ranchers and resorts that cater to vacationers. Everywhere in the drought belt, high temperature records this winter have been shattered. The city of Spokane, Wash., received less rain and snowfall in February than any year going back to the first weather log entry in 1881. Balmy temperatures also have caused cherry trees, lilacs, and flower beds to bloom three months early."

EDIT

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0311/p02s01-ussc.html

[havocmom]

1. Have had several days per weeks, several weeks since January, where

our high temp here in eastern MT was within 4 degrees of the high temp in Tucson, AZ. The ground has been cracking for over a month now and the cracks are getting to be about 1/2 to 3/4 inches wide. It is bad.

Friends in the western part of the state say there is no snow pack. There are a couple rivers which have not run in a year or two.

We will need our Guard here, protecting the homeland from the fires that will come instead of getting killed/maimed/making Iraqis hate us for occupying their country.

When the fires start, and unless we get a summer without lightening, they will start, the west is in serious trouble. And the people who we call on to help, the citizen soldiers who are from here, know the areas and know the problems, are not here to protect the farms and ranches, the parks and national treasures, will not be available.

The folly of empire continues to threaten more and more people. I fear for the young people here who will face the fire season seriously short handed. It will put too many firefighters at even greater risk.

We need to protect what is left of America IN America. National IDs, ear tags, chips in our necks, whatever they insist on, IS NOT PROTECTING AMERICA. It is protecting their own sorry asses FROM America (that would be from us) They are not taking care of getting us weaned off foreign oil, we now import over 40% of our food and too many of our emergency first responders are on extended duty occupying a nation which was NEVER a threat to the United States of America. They ARE NOT inspecting the cargo containers coming into US ports. An enemy could ship arms, toxins, hell, they could ship an army into our ports unnoticed! ID cards for us will not portect us, just make it easier for the junta to keep track of us. Homeland Security is a total lie.

I will hold the neocons responsible for any loss of life here just as they are responsible for the loss of lives in Iraq. They are not concerned with Homeland Security. They are concerned with their wallets.

[hatrack]

2. I'm impressed by what I've seen of your governor so far

Schweitzer doesn't strike me as somebody who's afraid of too much, and I thought his appeal for the redeployment of National Guard troops was both gutsy and necessary.

Your description of what Montana's looking at this year is chilling. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but it looks pretty grim.

[havocmom]

3. I just moved back here a few years ago and don't know all the players

as of yet. But I heard he raised the $$ to buy a grain elevator that was to be demolished (in his hometown area) when he was all of 19. he knew that elevator was important to the local farmers and he saved it.

Yeah, he just might bare watching. Watch and learn, America. You will believe a Dem can get along with reasonable, responsible Republicans to conduct the people's business in the people's interests and also maintain a solid spine in dealing with the unreasonable, irresponsible sort of rePIGucans who are so fond of creating governmental gridlock then blaming others for it.

We need more like him. We need one to take Baucus' seat in the Senate.