After a fantastic day with plentiful sunshine on Wednesday, more clouds are in the picture today as an upper-level weather system makes its way through the region. Central and eastern Montana is under a Level 1 (Marginal) risk for severe thunderstorms. Showers and thunderstorms develop over southwest Montana in the morning and move northeast through central Montana during the afternoon and evening.
The strength of these storms depends on available sunshine, but a few storms could get strong enough to produce damaging wind gusts and small hail. They'll be scattered, so not everyone will see a storm. Stay alert after 3pm!
It'll be fairly gusty on Friday across central and eastern Montana, with wind speeds between 20 and 30 mph along the Rocky Mountain Front and 10 and 25 mph across the plains. Gusts could exceed 50 mph for the Rocky Mountain Front. It will remain warm, with isolated showers and thunderstorms mainly east of I-15. Temperatures tomorrow and Friday will be around or slightly above average, in the upper 70s and lower 80s.
High pressure gradually builds in over the weekend into next week. This will provide us with quiet, beautiful weather. We'll have sunshine and seasonable temperatures, with highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s. It will be a bit breezy on Saturday.
It looks to get pretty hot early next week as high pressure amplifies into Montana, with high temperatures in the upper 80s and low to mid 90s. Storms return to the picture by Tuesday of next week. Sunny and hot weather with afternoon storms will be the setup leading up to Fourth of July next Friday.
