BILLINGS — The weekend is here and so is the smoke, which looks like will stick around at least for Friday. In the Billings area, we currently have 85 degrees with a south wind at 5 mph.
Smoke continues to be the big problem. It's rotating around an upper-level, high-pressure cell in the Four Corner states, and some of the smoke is still wafting its way into southern and eastern Montana Friday.
One bright side is that we are starting to see clearing skies and brighter skies in the northwest corner of the state as smoke starts tracking east.
Around the rest of the state, the current temps are mostly to the 70s and 80s everywhere we look. Plus, we have a fire weather watch for northwestern and southwestern Montana that begins Saturday at noon and goes until 9 p.m.
A new cold front moving through Saturday night could bring strong, gusty winds, low humidity and additional fire starts.
In the meantime, the Doppler radar and satellite shows not a cloud in sight. So, it's hello weekend across all of Montana.
The high-resolution forecast model shows generally clear skies for the rest of Friday, and a new warm front starts moving in Saturday, which will start cooking temperatures back up into the upper 90s again.
That's directly tied to a new cold front, which should move through Saturday night into Sunday morning.
On Friday night, our temperatures will cool back down to the 50s and 60s with generally fair to partly cloudy skies.
On Saturday, back to plenty of sunshine and maybe a little bit of smoke, as temps climb back up into the 80s, 90s and a few hundreds across the eastern edge of the state.
The Billings area will be 93 degrees at 5:30 p.m., then cool back down to the 60s in the morning and back to 91 degrees Saturday afternoon.
We will top out at 99 on Saturday, down to 93 on Sunday and then stay in the 90s Monday and Tuesday but drop back to the 80s on around midweek.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly clear and mild. Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Low 62 degrees.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny and hot. West winds 5 to 15 mph. High 99 to 100 degres.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny, and not as hot. North winds 5 to 15 mph high 93 degrees.
