2 flash flood, as filed by the National Weather Service.
Every event with a place to put it; 2 filed by county or forecast zone are drawn at its center, in a lighter ring. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Billings, MT wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Jul 16, 4:57 PM MST, 3 minutes earlier.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...UPDATED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BILLINGS MT
557 PM MDT FRI JUL 16 2004
...UPDATED FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH...
.SHORT TERM...VALID FOR SAT AND SUN...
BOTH ETA AND GFS SHOW THE UPPER RIDGE AXIS OVER WESTERN MONTANA. GFS
PERHAPS HAS IT A BIT FARTHER EAST THAN DOES ETA. GFS ALSO HAD THE EDGE
IN THAT IT PIN POINTED A VORT FEATURE THAT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE
THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY OVER THE NORTHEAST. BEYOND THAT...ETA DID A BETTER
JOB INITIALIZING THE RELATIVE HUMIDITY WITH THE WATER VAPOR IMAGERY AT
12Z. THIS IS NOT EXACTLY A STATEMENT OF PRAISE AS IT HAD ITS GREATER
HUMIDITIES FARTHER WEST THAT WHAT ACTUALLY WAS OCCURRING THEN. GFS...
HOWEVER...WAS A VICTIM OF CONVECTIVE FEEDBACK. CANNOT QUITE BUY INTO THE VERY
STRONG VORT IT HAS GOING OVER NORTHERN MONTANA LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND
EVENING. BELIEVE THAT ETA HAS THE BETTER SOLUTION IN HAVING WEAKER
DISTURBANCES PASS OVER THE AREA. MOREOVER...GFS MAY BE A BIT FAST IN MOVING
THE UPPER RIDGE EAST. WITH THAT IN MIND...HAVE LEANED MORE TOWARD THE ETA
SOLUTION. THE ACARS SOUNDING AT BILLINGS THIS AFTERNOON INDICATED FAIRLY GOOD
ELEVATED CAPE. THIS SEEMS TO BE DRAWN OUT BY WHAT LOOKS LIKE ELEVATED
CONVECTION GOING ON AROUND THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS. NOT MUCH IN DYNAMICS IS
AROUND AT THIS TIME...BUT WITH HIGH DEW POINTS AND ELEVATED CAPES...IT
SEEMS REASONABLE TO HAVE THE ENTIRE COUNTY WARNING AREA THIS EVENING HAVING
A SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS. SOME OF THESE COULD HAVE GUSTY WINDS. BASED
ON THE ETA SOLUTION...IT APPEARS THAT MOST THUNDERSTORMS SHOULD BE CONFINED
TO THE WESTERN ZONES SATURDAY INTO SUNDAY. DID NOT DO MUCH WITH TEMPERATURES
AND TWEAKED THE DEW POINTS JUST A BIT. CHB
.LONG TERM...VALID FOR MON...TUE...WED...THU...FRI...
FLATTENING OF THE UPPER RIDGE STILL ON TRACK FOR LATE MONDAY INTO
TUESDAY AS AN UPPER LOW CURRENTLY IN THE PACIFIC MOVES ACROSS WESTERN
CANADA AS A WEAK UPPER TROUGH. MODELS CONTINUE TO BE CONSISTENT WITH
THIS UPPER TROUGH AND THE WEAK SHORTWAVE ENERGY PROGGED TO MOVE
THROUGH THE FORECAST AREA MONDAY EVENING INTO EARLY TUESDAY. THIS TIME
FRAME REMAINS THE BEST SHOT FOR PRECIP ACROSS THE AREA AND WILL KEEP
GOING POPS AS IS. MODELS BEGIN TO DIVERGE A LITTLE FROM WEDNESDAY
ON...BUT ALL ARE INDICATING A NORTHWEST FLOW ALOFT OVER EASTERN
MONTANA AHEAD OF ANOTHER STRONG UPPER RIDGE THAT SETS UP OVER THE
SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES. THIS RIDGE IS CURRENTLY PROGGED TO RETROGRADE
SLOWLY TO THE WEST THROUGH THE END OF THE WEEK...BUT IF A MORE
EASTERLY POSITION HOLDS TEMPERATURES FOR THE SECOND HALF OF NEXT WEEK
WILL BE WARMER THAN THE GOING FORECAST INDICATES. MACZKO
&&
.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMP/POPS...
SAT SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI
-----------------------------------------------------------
BIL 067/098 069/097 064/094 062/088 060/087 059/088 059/088
31/B 00/B 22/T 20/U 00/U 00/U 00/U
LVM 059/092 059/093 054/090 054/085 053/084 052/086 052/086
22/T 22/T 22/T 20/U 00/U 00/U 00/U
HDN 064/101 066/099 063/095 063/088 058/089 057/089 057/089
30/G 00/B 22/T 20/U 00/U 00/U 00/U
MLS 067/100 068/102 066/095 063/089 061/087 059/088 060/088
30/B 00/G 02/T 20/U 00/U 00/U 00/B
4BQ 064/098 065/097 062/093 062/089 059/088 057/086 058/086
20/U 00/B 02/T 20/B 00/U 00/U 00/B
BHK 063/093 063/099 062/091 062/086 059/083 058/084 057/084
30/B 00/B 02/T 20/B 00/B 00/B 00/B
SHR 058/097 058/094 058/092 059/088 056/087 053/086 055/086
20/B 02/T 22/T 32/T 00/U 00/U 00/U
&&
.BYZ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
MT...SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH UNTIL 11 PM MDT FOR MT ZONES 29>33-35-42.
WY...NONE.
&&HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK...CORRECTED NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BILLINGS MT 1015 PM MDT THU JUL 15 2004 MTZ028-040>042-161100- GOLDEN VALLEY-PARK-SWEET GRASS-WHEATLAND- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...BIG TIMBER...HARLOWTON AND LIVINGSTON 1015 PM MDT THU JUL 15 2004 THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PARTS OF SOUTH CENTRAL MONTANA. .DAY ONE... NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME. .DAY TWO THROUGH SEVEN... NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME. .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT... WEATHER SPOTTERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO REPORT SIGNIFICANT WEATHER CONDITIONS ACCORDING TO STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES.
The Billings radar (KBLX), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 00:01 UTC.
2 flash flood. Local standard time, as filed.
Flash flooding on a ranch 10-15 miles east-southeast of the Snowy Mountains took out fenches.
Flash flooding reported on Horsethief Road.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Montana in 2004Every state in 2004This day in weather historyWarnings in Montana, July 2004
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5412277, 5412278.