WINTER RETURNS

The winter snow that brought several inches, and in some areas feet, of snow last weekend has residents continuing to plow and shovel their way out. On Sunday, a tree fell along Highway 200 west of Thompson Falls, backing up traffic near the Rimrock. According to the National Resource and Conservation Service tracking, the Lower Clark Fork region's snowpack is 125 percent of normal, and 119 percent in the Kootenai region. And as of Tuesday, the area had received almost 200 percent of normal precipitation for February, based on the average from 1981 to 2010.