Merry Christmas Eve!
Besides the wind across the prairies, beautiful winter weather spread across Montana with mostly sunny skies on Christmas Eve. Tonight will be windy and mild over the plains, calm and colder in the valleys. Christmas Day will have some high cloud cover, but I'm going to call it partly cloudy as the thin clouds will allow for filtered sunshine. It will be windy and warmer over the plains once again with highs in the 40s to near 50 there. The valleys of western Montana will have calm conditions with highs in the 30s.
This weekend will be on the cloudier side as a new storm moves through. Saturday will have scattered snow showers, moderate wind, and highs in the 30s and 40s. The only real accumulation of up to a few inches will be in the mountains. Sunday a cold front will drop south from Canada with areas of snow across the state. The snow will be light with up to 1" over the lower elevations of northern Montana, with the mountains picking up a few inches more. Snow will not fall all day long, but there will be areas of snow moving through the state throughout the day. Highs will be closer to 30.
Next week will be quiet with seasonable temperatures in the 20s and 30s. Besides a few snow showers on Tuesday, most of the week will be dry. Looking long range into the new year, the quiet and mild-ish pattern will continue. Nothing looks too terribly cold (below 0), and no significant snow events are likely for the forseeable future. Instead, minor systems rolling in from the Pacific will bring mainly light snow to the mountains.
Have a wonderful Christmas!
Curtis Grevenitz - Santa Claus
Chief Meteorologist
