Yep, Montana Is Getting Hotter

If it seems like the number of river closings and fires is increasing in Montana each year, it’s not your imagination. In the past five years, temperatures in Billings have averaged 1.1 degree higher than normal. “Steve Running, a University of Montana ecology professor, said a 1-degree increase in temperature translates into snow melting and trees budding out a couple of weeks earlier in the spring. The flip side to an earlier spring is a longer, drier summer with more wildfires and stream flows so low that rivers have to be closed to fishing, he said.” Clair Johnson in the Casper, Wyoming Star-Tribune.