WEATHER DISCUSSION: The weekend began on a sunny note with mostly sunny skies and high temperatures reaching into the mid to high-60’s and low-70’s. Relatively light winds were around North Central with gusts around 20 mph at times. Tonight, expect increasing cloudy cover to mostly cloudy with cool low temperatures in the 30’s and 40’s.
A closed upper low over CA is resulting in a southerly flow aloft across the region. This southerly flow is helping send temperatures at least a few degrees warmer compared to yesterday though, expect a few showers and thunderstorms across the region this evening, dissipating by late evening.
A developing surface low from the shifting low over California will begin the transition to cooler conditions across the region, initially over the plains behind a Canadian cold front Sunday morning. Expect slightly cooler high temperatures tomorrow in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s with mostly cloudy skies. Gusty winds are likely behind this front with sufficient instability for another opportunity for showers and thunderstorms (mainly in SW and S MT).
As the colder air arrives behind the cold front and precipitation across Southwest Montana transitions to become more widespread in nature chances of snow will fall by the evening, Sunday night. Precipitation in North Central looks to be lighter. Expect a period of lighter snow in the mountains of Central Montana late Sunday night into Monday, this being the only snow impacts for our viewing area.
This system quickly departs late Monday morning, though light lingering precipitation will be possible into the early afternoon hours. Heading into Tuesday and Wednesday, a northwesterly flow aloft will be in place as ridging builds. A weak wave passing through the building ridge will yield an opportunity for additional precipitation, though amounts with this system will be much lighter.
The building ridge shifts eastward for the latter portion of the week, allowing for a drier period and much warmer conditions to develop. Uncertainty increases toward next weekend, with the potential for another cooler period with increased precipitation chances.
