BILLINGS – On Friday afternoon, the weather in Billings and around the state is looking spectacular for the upcoming weekend.
The temperatures are already soaring into the upper 50s and 60s around the region with mostly sunny skies.
The threat board, with the warmer temperatures, is starting to fill up with flooding and gusty winds out the far northwest.
The Lodge Creek near the international border is starting to run over its banks now. The observation stage is at 8.8 feet. Flood stage is down at 7 feet.
The Milk River is almost 3 ½ feet out of its banks from the observation stage.
Low-lying areas still are at risk of flooding because the remaining snow pack is still melting.
The only weather maker we have in the entire western half the country is a low pressure cell that’s over the four corner states.
It is a cutoff low, meaning it’s cut off from the main jet streams and will continue to just sit and spin and sling rain and snow on a cloud cover toward Montana.
However, Billings is too far from the center of the storm and most of the clouds and rain. We just barely clip the southeast corner the state.
The computer model shows that that storm will continue to slide slowly into the central plains and eventually leave Montana alone. We will be looking at mostly sunny skies over the weekend.
Although a new cold front will move in from the Pacific Northwest on Saturday afternoon and cool us down from the 70s into the 60s.
This cold front is moisture-starved so we’re only looking for a few cloudy skies and not much in way of rain or snow.
It won’t be until the beginning of next week when we see a major weather pattern change when it will bring some colder and wetter weather and possibly even snowfall Monday morning.
BILLINGS FORECAST
Tonight: Mostly clear and still mild. East winds 5 to 10 mph in the evening becoming south westerly overnight. Low 37 degrees.
Saturday: Sunny and much warmer. Southwest winds 5 to 15 mph. High 71 degrees.
Sunday: Mostly sunny but a little cooler. Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph. High 60 degrees.
