BILLIINGS — It's the first day of a long weekend, and the forecast is going to be interesting through this Labor Day holiday.
In Billings, we currently have mostly sunny skies, light smoke in the air and 83 degrees, with a southwest wind at 7 mph.
Around the rest of the state, our temps are mostly into the 70s and 80s early Friday afternoon, but the smoke still seems to be a problem across much of south-central and southeastern Montana.
Local area wildfires continue to pump a little bit of smoke into our region and send it all the way into the northern and central plains states.
We still have a Red Flag Warning for much of Montana for this weekend. The only thing that's different is when it expires.
In western Montana, it expires at 10 p.m. Saturday in the northeast and at midnight Saturday. In the southeast, it expires at midnight on Sunday.
We also have an Air Quality Warning until 4 p.m. for the southeast corner of the state. Their air quality is unhealthy.
Plus, we have a Winter Storm Watch for the western Rocky Mountain front. We can expect to see 2 to 4 inches of snow with as much as 6 inches above the 7,000-foot level.
But as far as Friday is concerned, we are looking at generally dry skies across all of Montana and the Pacific Northwest. The high-resolution forecast model says the same thing for Friday into Saturday.
However, on Sunday a new cold front drops down from Canada, bringing colder temperatures, rain, and probably snow by the time Monday night gets here.
In Billings, it will be rain mixing with snow.
However, Friday night it will be 87 degrees at 5:30 p.m., 60 degrees in the morning and back up to 93 at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
We will top out at 100 degrees on Saturday, then cool back down to 50 by Monday, climb up to 53 on Tuesday and eventually work our way up to 74 degrees by Thursday of next week.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly clear with areas of smoke and mild. East winds 5 to 10 mph in the evening shifting to the Northwest overnight. Low 58 degrees.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny and very hot. West winds 10 to 20 mph. High 100°. The record for the day is 95 degrees.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny and not as hot. Northwest winds 10 to 20 mph. High 84 degrees.
