BILLINGS — Even though it's not a white Christmas, it has turned out to be a beautiful Christmas Eve in Billings this afternoon. Our temperatures are little bit cool, mostly into the 30s this afternoon, but the sunshine helps.
Around the rest the state our temps are mostly to the 20s and 30s although it is 42 degrees at Livingston and 40s in northern Wyoming.
On the threat board the only thing we have in our neck of the woods is a Winter Weather Advisory for southwest Montana. That stays with us until 10 PM tonight for snow. 1 to 3 inches the valleys and 3 to 10 inches of snow in the mountains.
A little farther North between Great Falls and Havre. We have a Dense Fog Advisory until 3 p.m.
Part of that is because we have some snowfall flying in that area. It's a larger upper level disturbance that's moving from the Southwest to north-central Montana. It's all part of a huge upper level trough that's sweeping across the West.
So far most of these disturbances have been doing an end run around the Billings area.
In fact, that's what our high-resolution forecast model is projecting today. Later tonight we will still have a southwesterly flow from southwestern Montana on up towards Glasgow but no moisture moving into Billings.
On Christmas day we could see some flurries sweep across Yellowstone County in the morning. Most of that storm will stay in southeastern Montana.
It'll continue to work its way up into the northeastern corner the state. However, don't worry we do see one more batch of snow move into the Billings area about 10 p.m. Christmas night. That moves out of here by 6 a.m. Thursday morning.
Our temperatures will stay into the 30s this afternoon and drop back down to the mid-20s the morning and back to the mid-30s again Wednesday afternoon.
In fact, we will top out at 42 degrees on Wednesday, then 40 degrees for high on Thursday.
We get back to the mid-40s by the weekend and early next week.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy with a 20% chance for snow overnight. North winds 5 to 10 mph this evening shifting to the West overnight. Low 29°.
CHRISTMAS: Mostly cloudy with a 20% chance for snow in the morning then a chance of rain in the afternoon. West winds 5 to 10 mph in the morning shifting to the North 5 to 15 mph in the afternoon. High 42°.
THURSDAY: Decreasing clouds and a little cooler. West winds 5 to 10 mph. High 40°.
