BILLINGS — On Friday afternoon, we see a rather friendly sky in the Billings area for a change. The early afternoon temperature was 70 degrees with partly cloudy skies and a southwest wind at 6 mph.
Around the rest of the state, the temps are mostly to the 60s out in the west, and a few 70s across south-central and eastern Montana can be seen.
The thunderstorm outlook for Friday shows a stray shower or thunderstorm is possible in most of Montana and northern Wyoming. And the same is true for Saturday.
The Doppler radar shows we have showers coming down out of Alberta into central Montana and going right back up into Manitoba, Canada. That's where there is an upper-level, low-pressure cell drawing all the moisture.
The high-resolution forecast model shows we will continue to see showers track just to the north of Billings Friday until 7:30 p.m., when we might see showers move into the city.
On Saturday morning, we are expecting mostly dry conditions and partly cloudy skies. However, we might see rain move into Yellowstone County about 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
After that, your next shot at showers will be 7:30 a.m. Sunday. Then that moves away, leaving us with partly cloudy skies for Sunday afternoon.
The computer models suggest Billings could pick up almost a half-inch of rain by the end of the weekend. Sheridan could get over three-quarters of an inch of rain.
Our temps will continue to stay into the 70s for the rest of the day, drop back down into the 50s in the morning and back to 75 degrees about 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
We will top out at 80 degrees on Saturday, then back down to the upper 70s on Sunday and Monday. We return to the 80s Tuesday through Thursday.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy with a 30% chance for isolated showers and thunderstorms early. We could see isolated rain showers overnight. Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph in the evening shifting to the Southwest overnight. Low 52 degrees.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny with a 20% chance for rain in the afternoon. West winds 10 to 20 mph. High 80 degrees.
SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy with a 60% chance for showers in the morning and thunderstorms in the afternoon. West winds 5 to 15 mph. High 78 degrees.
