Rediscovering home: Keeping '54'

Gusty winds set the butterflies free.  But “54” is safe at home in Mineral County.

Gusts of wind tore apart a solar-powered, wind chime butterflies hanging from a tree in the front yard.  It appears to me, and others, that the wind appears to be more fierce than I remember growing up here.  Memory can be as flighty as a butterfly, so I called the National Weather Service Office in Missoula.  Dave Noble took the time to scour their data and explain the science to a novice at best. 

What’s the answer? Well, that’s not particularly clear.  For one, the NWS does not have a station in Mineral County. The data is from Missoula. Further, Noble said the NWS’s wind data is not well consolidated. 

The average wind speed at the Missoula airport over recent years has actually been a little slower than the historical average. It was especially windy in the springs of 2015-16, but since then it has been average. April is the windiest month with an average speed of 6.3 mph. The least windy month is January at 3.4 mph, as temperature inversions slow the winds in Missoula.   

However, there has been a “slight uptick” in the number of wind gusts reaching 30, 40 and 50 mph. On June 3 of this year, a gust of 51 mph was recorded. The highest gust in Missoula was 79 mph recorded on June 23, 2012. The gust was likely associated with a thunderstorm, where the winds are quite localized. 

Noble said the gusts last week that released my butterflies were probably associated with a dry front that moved through the area. The terrain in Mineral County is complex, making forecasting winds somewhat challenging. 

Noble pointed out that weather forecasts have been based on models using physics and mathematics. Now, there are “machine-learning models.” Historical data is loaded onto a computer, even a laptop. The computer looks at the current weather conditions and compares them to similar conditions in the historical data in order to make forecasts. These models enable the weather forecasting entities to predict, for instance, that you should “expect light rain in 21 minutes.” 

In addition to laments about the wind, people have also wondered if “54” was being phased out from our license plates. Not so, the local treasurer’s office told me. The county number will remain on standard and personalized plates, but it is not included on the specialty plates where the purchaser contributes to a long list of Montana organizations. 

“There is no plan to add or remove county numbers from standard or specialized plates. Any change would take legislative action,” according to Chase Scheuer, Press Secretary for Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Montana Department of Justice. “Specialty plates do not have the number because there are more plate options and counties could easily run out of the county specific sequence. The organization’s designs would also make the sequence space smaller and sometimes unable to accommodate all characters allowed.” 

I first called the Department of Transportation, only to learn the Justice Department handles these matters. 

“All motor vehicle activities, registrations, license plates, vehicle transactions, driver licenses and records have always been handled with the Department of Justice. In 1979, the Driver License Bureau was moved from MHP [Montana Highway Patrol] to Motor Vehicle Division keeping it within the Department of Justice.” 

I chose the Montana Food Bank plate.  I liked the plate was black, matching my car.  I loved the metallic bear. But the main reason was that my mom, Gloria, was a founder of the Mineral County Food Bank.  She was honored as a senior citizen of the year in Montana for her work feeding those in need.