BILLINGS — On Friday afternoon in the Big Sky, Billings is enjoying mostly sunny skies in the early afternoon. The temperatures are still fairly comfortable for this time of year.
It’s 39 degrees with a southwest wind at 10 mph, which gives us a wind chill factor of 32 degrees.
Around the rest of the state, our current temps are mostly to the 30s and 40s, although it's 22 degrees in Glasgow and 25 degrees at Glendive.
It's a pretty breezy day, especially around the mountains. We've had winds gusting anywhere from 18 to 41 mph up in the Rockies.
And the winds are only going to get stronger later Friday evening and through Saturday morning, especially in the Rocky Mountain front. There we could see gusts up to 70 mph. Farther east of there, north-central Montana could see winds more 40 to 60 mph.
Meanwhile, farther south in Sweet Grass County, we could be seeing winds gusting 65 mph near Big Timber and 70 mile-per-hour winds in the Beartooth foothills. The Cody foothills could see winds gusting to 65 mph all this weekend.
The Doppler radar and satellite imagery only shows scattered snow showers in west-central Montana around Missoula.
The high-resolution forecast model shows we could see scattered snow showers lingering in the northwest corner of the state through the rest of Friday, then on Saturday we could see a few more snow showers moving into the Beartooths.
But still generally dry conditions across Montana, east of the Divide. That changes Sunday morning, when we see a line of showers extend from Swift Current, Saskatchewan, all the way down to Sheridan, Wyoming, all of which will be east of Billings.
Then on Monday morning, we could start to see a little rain mixing with snow in the Billings area. But then all that goes away by Monday afternoon.
We will stay in the 30s throughout the rest of the day then pop up to 42 degrees about 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
We will top out at 44 on Saturday 50 degrees on Sunday, then roll it back into the 30s, most of Christmas week and 38 degrees on Christmas Eve.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Partly cloudy, breezy and cool. Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Low 28 degrees.
SATURDAY: Decreasing clouds and very windy. Southwest winds 15 to 30 mph gusting to 40 mph in the afternoon. High 44 degrees.
SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy, windy and warmer. Southwest winds 15 to 30 mph gusting to 40 mph in the afternoon. High 50 degrees.
