Hi-Line field offices vie for “Coldest Place in America”

You’ve gotta be tough to thrive on Montana’s prairie Hi-Line, especially during winter when your town’s claim to fame is often having the coldest daily temperature in the Lower 48 United States.

The Hi-Line region includes Montana’s northern-most counties, from the Rocky Mountain Front in the west to Bainville in the east. The Montana Hi-Line is so named because it includes the Great Northern Railway route, a high-latitude railway line constructed in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The Montana Hi-Line is home to three BLM field offices: Havre, Malta and Glasgow, with a fourth field office, Miles City, administering public lands in the eastern-most Hi-Line counties. Several towns located in three of those field offices’ administrative areas earned that “coldest” distinction during early February.

While some may instinctively shudder at the sight of negative double digits, many winter-hardy BLMers living and working on the Hi-Line revel in their “winning” status and cultivate some friendly rivalry for a claim to the daily cold-weather crown (national daily high/low temperature records are available on the National Weather Service website). 

On Feb. 3, 2025, temps dropped to -25 degrees in Browning, located near the western-most boundary of the BLM Havre Field Office.

On Feb. 6, 2025, at 5 a.m. (MST), the City of Havre, and home of the BLM Havre Field Office, started the day with the “coldest” title at -27 degrees.

By the end of the day, a weather data collection station near Dunkirk, Montana, (within the BLM Havre Field Office area) pulled into first place at -28 degrees.

On Feb. 7, 2025, a Hi-Line weather data collection station located about 13 miles northeast of Poplar, Montana, within the BLM Miles City Field Office administrative area, reported -23 degrees, taking the coldest-of-the-day title.

On Feb. 8, 2025, at -22 degrees, Havre shared the “coldest” honors with four other Montana towns.

On Feb. 9, 2025, the lowest temps in the contiguous states were recorded at -28 degrees in Saco, Montana, near the eastern-most boundary of the BLM Malta Field Office area.

On Feb. 11, at 5 a.m., a weather data collection station in Malta reported a blanket-clutching -38 degrees. That temp was also reported from a station near White Sulphur Springs in the Little Belt Mountains, within the BLM Lewistown Field Office area.

By 11 a.m., the coldest-of-the-day title was usurped by a -43-degree report coming in from about 14 miles northeast of Ingomar, Montana, within the BLM Miles City Field Office area. Then, in an 11 p.m. station report, Huntley, Montana, in the Billings Field Office, matched that bone-chilling temperature.

While early February 2025’s coldest daily temperatures thus far are certainly both respectable and shiver-worthy, they don’t even come close to the coldest-ever recorded daily temperature.

On Jan. 20, 1954, the Montana and Lower 48 United States' record cold temperature of -70 degrees was observed at a mining camp near the Continental Divide, a short distance from Rogers Pass near Helena, located within the BLM Butte Field Office.