BILLINGS — Mostly cloudy skies, a little smoke and temperatures that are not quite as hot as the past few days. That's the story for Billings Wednesday afternoon. It's mostly cloudy with 82 degrees and a southwest wind at 10 mph in Billings in the afternoon.
Around the rest of the state, the temps are mostly to the 70s and 80s in western and central Montana. But the high heat, that's up in the northeast corner of the state, where we are seeing mid to upper 90s.
In fact, that's where we have a Heat Advisory until 9 p.m. Wednesday. On the other side of the state, it's a Red Flag Warning from Great Falls to Bozeman, where we could see low humidity and dry lightning cause additional fire starts.
The Doppler radar shows a line of showers moving through that area, with a little lightning that could cause additional fire starts.
The high-resolution forecast model shows a marginal risk of severe storms from southwest Montana to the central part of the state, including south-central Montana.
We could see a line of thunderstorms from Great Falls to Billings to Sheridan by about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. Then a marginal risk of severe thunderstorms covers most of eastern Montana for Thursday.
That's when we could see more showers move into the area by 6 p.m. Thursday. After that, we are looking at mostly clear skies for Friday morning into the afternoon.
The area temperatures will cool back down to the 50s and 60s across south-central and eastern Montana Wednesday night. Then get back up into the 80s and 90s across the region for Thursday.
We will be at 94 degrees at 5 p.m., then cool back down to 69 degrees in the morning and back up to 89 degrees by 1 p.m. Thursday.
We will top out at 92 on Thursday and cook up to 96 degrees by Saturday. After that, we will roll it back into the low 90s for Sunday and Monday and bottom out at 88 for high on Tuesday.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy with a 30% chance for showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Some storms may have some gusty winds around them. Southwest winds 5 to 15 mph. Low 65 degrees.
THURSDAY: Mostly sunny with a 20% chance for afternoon thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms could contain some brief gusty winds. Southwest winds 5 to 15 mph. High 92 degrees.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny, dry and still hot. Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph. High 92 degrees.
