BILLINGS – On this Tuesday afternoon, the sun is out and the temperatures are starting to soar in the Billings area. In the early afternoon Billings has already topped out at 90 degrees and expected to go higher.
Around the rest of the state, we are mostly into the 70s and 80s in the West, 80s and low 90s back in East with mostly 80s and northern Wyoming.
On the threat board, we still have a Red Flag Warning from Havre all the way down into Idaho. High winds and low humidity will cause erratic fire behavior and possibly cause new wildfires.
Our thunderstorm outlook for Tuesday does show isolated thunderstorms expected across most of Western Montana.
There’s a marginal risk of severe storms for eastern Montana, east along a line from Glasgow to Sheridan, Wyo.
The Doppler radar and satellite imagery shows one big storm already starting to push its way into the Helena Valley between Great Falls and Bozeman.
That storm looks like it will do an end-run around the Billings area. In addition, more showers south of Cody continue to track east along the state line with Wyoming.
Those storms look like they won’t affect on Billings.
Our high-resolution forecast model shows we could see some spotty sprinkles around 6 p.m. in Billings and bigger storms near Lodge Grass. At midnight, a few more sprinkles could move into Billings.
Look for partly cloudy skies in Billings on Wednesday morning and another batch of thunderstorms moving in the Lodge Grass around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Thursday morning look for more widely scattered showers to move into south-central Montana, including Yellowstone County. Most of these should be fairly light.
Our temperatures will continue to stay warm for the next 24 hours and actually stay the 90s through the rest of the week until Monday of next week when we dip back down to 89 degrees.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly clear with a 20 percent chance for showers and thunderstorms in the evening. West winds 5 to 15 mph. Low 64 degrees.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny and hot again. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. High 95 degrees.
THURSDAY: Partly cloudy and continued warm. South winds 5 to 10 mph. High 92 degrees.
