Montana Folk Festival, Butte's signature summer event, concludes as a scorcher

Temperatures on Friday reached 87 degrees in Butte and by Saturday it got even warmer, with a high of 95 degrees. By Sunday, the high temperature dipped to 94.

Storm clouds loomed early Sunday afternoon, but no moisture materialized.

Blistering heat was the norm across Montana, with high temperatures ranging from the 90s to more than 110 degrees in spots in the eastern part of the state.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported that a strong ridge of high pressure lingered in the upper atmosphere over the northern Rockies over the weekend, which pushed hot air toward the surface and trapped it there.

NASA said meteorologists call this weather phenomenon a heat dome, which puts the brakes on convection and suppresses clouds and precipitation. This allows sunlight to reach Earth’s surface relatively unhindered and further elevate air temperatures.

George Everett, festival director, believes the high daytime temperatures were why some people “fled the scene.”

“It was not the weather that we ordered,” he said with chuckle.

Everett said daytime crowds were down some, with crowds growing at night.

“It wasn’t a record year,” he said. 

There was a silver lining to the sweltering temperatures.

“The heat was a persuasive factor for people to head to the bars and restaurants in Uptown Butte,” said Everett. “That’s something we all benefit from.”

Everett said Saturday’s Butte Farmers Market, with 68 vendors, also had a record number of customers on Park Street.

Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff Ed Lester said when you have a huge influx of people coming into Butte, there are always safety considerations.

Everything went pretty smoothly, according to Sheriff Lester, who credits the festival’s organizers.

“The Folk Festival crowds are usually a very easy-going group of people,” he said. “They are out for a good time and are very respectful.”

Last year, the B-SB Fire Department was called out only a few times during the festival.

It was a different story this year.

Assistant Fire Chief Kelly J. Lee said crews from the fire department answered 53 calls, including several related to heat exposure, burns and breathing problems.

Those calls also included a vehicle fire, downed power lines, a gas leak, motor vehicle collision and additional medical calls.

According to Everett, festival revenues, which include beer sales and bucket donations, are down by about $50,000 from last year.

“People just did not want to hang out in the heat,” he said. “Some, though, were tough and stayed.”

Everett said as temperatures cooled a bit at night, the crowds grew significantly larger.

“It’s an outdoor event, so we take what we can get,” he said.

All the performers made their way to Butte except for the Wolfbear Singers. The group canceled due to a family emergency.

The Legendary Ingramettes, a gospel group from Richmond, Virginia, insisted the heat did not bother them much. It lacked Richmond’s enervating humidity, they said.

When the singers spoke, around 1:15 p.m. Saturday, they sat in deep shade beneath the towering tent at the Quartz Street Stage. They shared the stage that hour with heat-tolerant Dale Watson, a honky-tonk singer songwriter from Texas; Prezident Brown, a reggae performer from tropical Jamaica; and two members of a bluegrass band from hot and humid southwest Virginia.

Meanwhile, the Pine Leaf Boys, a Cajun band from Louisiana, did not reference the heat during a Saturday afternoon performance at the shaded Dance Pavilion. Instead, they joked about the steep increase in elevation they weathered coming from Louisiana, where sections of New Orleans are one or two feet below sea level, to mile-high-plus Uptown Butte.

They said Butte would be a good place to train for performances back home.

Everett said he received rave reviews from the performers.

“We do our best to treat them like rock stars,” he said.

Everett said he also got plenty of positive feedback from attendees as well.

“Everyone I talked to had a wonderful time,” he said. “They just loved the variety of music.”

For anybody wondering: Plans are underway for the next Montana Folk Festival, scheduled for July 9-11, 2027, in Uptown Butte.

Here's hoping it won’t be too hot or too cold, and any precipitation remains elusive.