Highs should hit 101 by Sunday

If the hills could sing, they’d be singing “How dry I am.”

An historic heat wave is expected to hit the region this weekend after an already record dry spring, the National Weather Service is warning.

From April to the end of June, Kalispell is 4.5 inches below a normal year for rain and is just 20 percent of the long-term average, National Weather Service meteorologist Ray Nickless said. With just 1.17 inches of rain this spring, it’s the driest spring in 100 years. May saw just .22 inches of rain.

Things will get worse before they get better, as temperatures will zoom into the upper 90s by Friday, with highs approaching 101 on Sunday and 102 on Monday.

The heat is expected to last at least through the July 4 weekend. The area hasn’t seen any widespread or significant rain since June 3.

The Flathead National Forest recently raised the fire danger to high and in Missoula County, the fire danger is now very high.

Streams are also suffering. The Flathead River was running at 8,020 cubic feet per second on June 23, which is a new record low for the date. The last time the river was this low was in 1988. The water levels keep dropping every day.

Swimmers trying to beat the heat were jumping off the Belton Bridge in West Glacier, as river levels looked more like August than June.

In addition to the heat, dry lightning strikes could happen next week. If that happens, this year has the potential to parallel 2003, when a dry June resulted in historic wildfires across the area, including Glacier National Park.

“We’ll break all-time (fire) indices we look at if we don’t get significant precipitation,” said Mike Richmond, a wildfire meteorologist.

No relief is in sight, either.

“We don’t see any significant relief whatsoever,” Nickless said.