This Is Winter? Alberta Dust, Montana Gust, Dakota Fires

Traffic cam shows a dust storm in Alberta yesterday. 

 When I picture the High Plains of the United States and Canada in the winter, I think of vast expanses of blowing snow, bitter temperatures, you know, the movie "Fargo." 

This year, it's dry, arid land, dust storms and fires. 

For the second time in as many weeks, parts of northern and central Plains Kansas,  including the "wetter" Missouri valley in the eastern South Dakota and Nebraska are under a red flag warning today due to the high risk of rangeland fires.

It hasn't snowed or rained much there this winter. The ground is uncharacteristically free of snow and there's been odd warm spells. Yankton, in southeastern South Dakota, is expecting a high of 56 degrees today, wind gusts to 45 mph and a relative humidity down around 20 percent.

Across the international border in Canada, dust storms caused highway crashes in southern Alberta, according to CBC.  Some highways were closed in the area as winds gusted to 70 mph.  Chinook winds off the Canadian Rockies often erase the wintertime snow cover in this part of Canada, but it's rare to hae serious dust storms there in February. 

Back into the United States, just a little south of the Alberta dust storm, Cut Bank, Montana reported a gust of 83 mph, its highest wind since 1961.

Extreme drought is ongoing in much of northern Montana and adjacent Alberta, which helps explain the odd conditions.