March 2023 Was 7th Coldest March On Record For Sheridan Area

Spring may have officially started last month, but the thermometer suggested differently.

The National Weather Service in Billings, Montana says the average temperature in March for the Sheridan area was 23.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s about 12.4 degrees colder than normal, and it was the 7th coldest March in recorded history.

The last time there was an average monthly temperature that low was in 2002, when it got down to 22.8 degrees.

The coldest March happened in 1912, and the average temperature then was 17.6 degrees.

Todd Chambers with the National Weather Service Office in Billings, Montana says the La Nina weather cycle in the Pacific Ocean recently ended and weather patterns compared to the past 3 winters have been shifting as a result.

When the snow fell, it stayed on the ground longer than it has the past few winters, which in turn affected the air temperature.

“We had a lot of cloud cover, some snow, that kind of thing and also the jet stream has been oriented to the south of the area and that’s allowed that Canadian air to kind of hang in here. A lot of that has been because we have snow cover from Sheridan all the way up to the north and so any kind of cold front that has come down from Canada has had that snow cover there to keep them cold.”

The recent snowstorm that passed through the Sheridan area dropped anywhere from 1 to 20 inches of snow, depending on location.

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The National Weather Service in Riverton reports that Casper got walloped with 34.7 inches.