How's the Canyon?

Ready for snow: what the pavement is doing, what is coming, and an estimate when the canyon slows down. WHAT THE ROAD IS DOING, NOT WHAT THE AIR IS DOING Pavement temperature from Montana DOT's road sensors on MT-64 and at Norris Hill, right beside the air temperature, because those two are often nothing alike. Air above freezing with the pavement below it is rain freezing on contact, and it is exactly the case your car's thermometer cannot see. The app says so in plain language when it happens and stays quiet when it doesn't. SNOW ON THE WAY When snow is coming to a stretch of the corridor you get it in words: roughly how much, roughly when, and which stretch. No decimal places. The difference between 2.4 and 3.1 inches of forecast snow is not something anybody plans around. A NUMBER WHEN IT'S SLOW When drivers are crawling through a stretch and nobody has come out the other end yet, the row now shows roughly how long it is taking instead of only a color. ALERTS WHEN THEY MATTER The first time a road you follow is blocked, the Conditions screen offers to turn on road alerts, and the tour has a page about them. Quiet hours now run up to twelve hours. FROM INSIDE THE DEAD ZONE A few phones do have data in the canyon: a Starlink in the car, a carrier with coverage, or a newer iPhone's carrier satellite service. Those phones now report their position about once a minute while they are in there, so a stop can show up before anybody drives out. Over satellite the app sends only small things, and iOS asks you first. ALSO Runs on iOS 18 and later. The Lock Screen drive display is gone; it proved less useful than hoped.