Northwest Montana wraps up record warm winter

West Glacier recorded its warmest winter in more than 75 years, finishing the 2025-26 season with an average daily temperature 6.6 degrees above normal.

The gateway community to Glacier National Park set new daily high temperatures on eight occasions last winter, eclipsing the 50-degree mark three times.

The National Weather Service in Missoula shared the data Thursday while recapping an abnormally warm winter across the Northern Rockies driven by La Niña conditions.

“In the Northern Rockies, a La Niña typically means a cooler and wetter winter, although not always,” the Weather Service reported. “This season, however, broke records for warmth in many valley locations and set individual high-temperature records on multiple days.”

Residents in West Glacier shoveled just 37 inches of snow this winter. Typically, the mountain region records about 80 inches of snowfall.

In the Flathead Valley, Kalispell experienced its fourth-warmest winter since records began in 1889, with an average temperature 5.7 degrees above normal. While the city received ample liquid precipitation — about an inch above average — only 22.5 inches of snowfall was measured. The total is well below the 30-year average of 38 inches, according to Weather Service data.

Libby had a winter “for the history books,” the Weather Service said. It was the city’s warmest since 1986, with an average temperature 4.7 degrees above normal. Nearly 6 inches of liquid precipitation fell, well above the 4.3-inch average, while only 8.5 inches of snowfall was recorded.

Missoula and Butte also experienced their warmest winters on record, with Butte’s average temperature nearly 10 degrees above normal.

Mountain snowpack is a bit below average, with the Flathead Basin at about 90% of normal as of the beginning of April.