Storms make roads treacherous

Ron Clark of Lakeside uses a snowblower to clear his driveway on Monday morning.

A wrought iron fence is slowly caked by still falling snow on Monday morning in Somers.

by The Daily Inter Lake
| November 14, 2011 6:58 PM

A wrought iron fence is slowly caked by still falling snow on Monday morning in Somers.

After the first genuine low-elevation snow squalls of the season settled over Northwest Montana, there was a pile of motor vehicle accidents Monday.

The Montana Department of Transportation reported slushy and icy conditions on roads throughout Flathead County and from Swan Lake to Libby by midmorning.

By early afternoon, Flathead County 911 dispatchers had sent emergency responders to 18 motor vehicle accidents, most of them without serious injuries.

Kalispell escaped the brunt of the storms, but surrounding areas got hammered by snowfall. There were reports of snow as deep as 12 inches in the Kila area west of Kalispell.

By early Monday morning, the National Weather Service had recorded 13 inches of new snow at Flattop Mountain in Glacier National Park, the same amount at Noisy Basin on the Swan Range and eight inches at the Marias Pass summit.

Later Monday, stormy weather at Marias Pass made for treacherous driving conditions, with the state road report indicating “high winds, snowing, reduced visibility, snow and ice.”

Winter weather is expected to linger in and around the Flathead Valley.

The National Weather Service forecast for Kalispell calls for snow every day through Friday.