ST. IGNATIUS - We all know Montana's unpredictable weather — one minute it's sunny and the next it's raining.
Well, the latest Montana wild weather event happened on May 9, 2023, when a land spout was spotted above the Mission Valley.
On Tuesday evening, dark clouds swelled up over the Mission Mountains. Soon after, it began to rain and hail heavily in St. Ignatius.
Then a funnel started to drop down from the sky.
Now, the community is spinning as it's the talk of the town on social media where photos and videos have been circulating non-stop.
To hear some firsthand observations, MTN spent time at St. Ignatius community hub, the Old Timer Cafe.
"Yesterday we went to our granddaughter's baseball game up in Ronan. I got out of the truck, walked around the truck, and I saw people with their cameras up," resident Marie Torosian shared. "So, I stopped to see what they were looking at and I saw the funnel cloud coming down towards St. Ignatius. And I immediately jumped back in [the truck] and got my husband and my son [and said], 'You gotta look at this! Come look at this!' Pretty soon everybody's out with their cameras recording and taking pictures."
Torosian swiftly sent texts to her children who live in St. Ignatius to make sure they were safe.
She also noted that the thunder was extremely powerful adding that she was amazed and scared while watching the funnel come down.
"Then, my grandchildren's daycare owners showed up to the ballgame because their daughter plays. They were telling us that they were closer to it when it happened and it was throwing dirt, sand, and rocks all around their place," Torosian told MTN News. "They didn't know what was going on until they went outside and looked up. Then they evacuated their daycare because they still had four kids there. It was pretty scary for them as well."
Quickly, the community took to social media to share images, videos, and reactions.
"It was going rampant on Facebook," Torosian eagerly said. "There were so many pictures. There were so many videos. There's awesome, awesome [visuals] the people captured."
Click here to view a photo gallery of Tuesday's land spout sighting.
