temperature

An average increase in minimum temperatures in late winter/early spring and in early fall is not new news, and this result has come from a wide variety of studies throughout the Rockies (and the rest of the West) - here is more confirmation from within Montana.  Joseph Caprio, a professor emeritus in Montana State University's Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, along with two others (from Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre in Canada and the Desert Research Institute), authored a paper in Climatic Change, which shows that minimum temperatures are increasing at approximately 10% per decade.
General Audience Article:  The Montana State University news service published this nice summary article about the Bozeman, MT and Coldstream, B.C research.
Journal Article: "A statistical procedure to determine recent climate change of extreme daily meteorological data as applied at two locations in Northwestern North America" in Climatic Change.
For those of you thinking about impacts, some potential impacts from this extended warm season include (among others):
  - Earlier spring runoff, with potential risk for increased drought
Journal Aricle: "Twentieth century trends in runoff, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture in the Western United States", A.F. Hamlet et al., Journal of Climate, 2007.
  - Impacts on flowering plants
Journal Article: "Effects of climate change on phenology, frost damage, and floral abundance of montane wildflowers", D.W. Inouye, Ecology, 2008.