BILLINGS- Sunny skies and warmer temperatures prevailed across much of south-central Montana on Tuesday.
With temperatures already reaching into the upper 50s and low 60s, we are calling it “Toasty Tuesday”.
Many other temperatures around the state of already made it into the 40s, 50s and even a few 60s around the region.
On the threat board, you’ll find a lot of flooding in Montana. Many roads are closed. The westbound lanes of I-90 between Hardin and Wyoming remain closed, although the eastbound lanes opened Tuesday morning.
Now adding insult to injury, we have a Winter Storm Watch for the Crazy and Beartooth Mountains.
This goes into effect Wednesday morning and lasts until Friday evening and we could see as much as 12 to 24 inches of snow in both mountain ranges.
The Doppler radar shows the snow is already starting to make its way toward west-central Montana around Missoula heading up toward Great Falls.
Now, a huge upper-level, low-pressure cell off the West Coast continues to send copious amounts of moisture into Montana where it can mix with cooler air from Canada.
The southwest corner of the state will pick up the heavier snow, but Billings could actually see one to three inches of snow by midnight Thursday night and possibly four to six inches of snow through Friday.
Our temperatures will top out in the 60s this afternoon and drop back down to the 30s in the morning. On Wednesday we top out at 58 degrees and roll back down to 42 degrees by Friday for the high.
After that, we warm back up into the 50s over the weekend and the beginning of next week.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy and still mild. West winds 5 to 15 mph. Low 37 degrees.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance for rain in the afternoon. There is a 70 percent chance that the rain will be changing to snow overnight. Northeast winds 5 to 15 mph. High 58 degrees.
THURSDAY: Mostly cloudy with an 80 percent chance for snow in the morning, then rain and snow likely in the afternoon and much colder accumulating snow is possible. Northeast winds 5 to 15 mph. High 43 degrees.
