BILLINGS — It has turned out to be a beautiful sunny day in Billings. Even the temperatures are in a good mood at 62 degrees. However, the winds are a little breezy out of the west at 22, gusting to 28 mph.
Around the rest of the state, it's a little cool up in the northwest corner, where we have temps into the 30s and 40s but generally 50s and 60s everywhere else across eastern Montana, except for Glasgow, where it is still 47.
Part of the reason we are so warm: we have some pretty strong downsloping winds off the eastern slopes of the Divide. Just this last hour, we've seen winds gusting to 44 mph at Livingston and 48 mph at Great Falls.
This compresses the air that's already here and heats it up.
However, the Doppler radar and satellite imagery shows some showers have moved into the central part of the state and dissipated Tuesday afternoon. The high clouds continue to track toward the southeast.
At the surface, the high-resolution forecast model shows a new cold front in Saskatchewan, Canada, will drop back down into Montana, creating a backdoor cold front on Wednesday morning.
This will race through the state and then kick out of the way, and you'll see mostly sunny skies on Thursday morning. Then a new batch clouds roll in Friday morning from the southwest, which could contain snow.
However, we think the snow will probably not get over the Beartooth Mountains, and that's where it will stay. It will be 53 degrees at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, then roll back down to the 40s in the morning.
From there, the temps will jump up to 55 degrees by 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
We will top out at 55 degrees on Wednesday, then roll it back down to the 30s and 40s for the rest of the week and eventually get back up to 41 degrees by Monday afternoon.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Partly cloudy, breezy and mild. Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph low 36 degrees.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny and warm. Southwest winds 10 to 20 mph high 55 degrees.
THURSDAY: Mostly sunny and colder. West winds 5 to 10 mph the morning shifting to the East 5 to 15 mph in the afternoon. High 40 degrees.
