BILLINGS — We have mostly cloudy skies with a few holes in the cloud cover Monday afternoon in Billings. Plus, it's a little cooler: the early afternoon temperatures was only 59 degrees.
Around the rest of the state, we are only into the 40s in the southwest and 40s and 50s in the northwest. Back here east of the divide, we have mostly 50s and 60s.
The thunderstorm outlook for Monday shows isolated thundershowers possible across much of Montana but nothing severe is expected.
The same thing is true for Tuesday, with only the northeast corner of the state having the possibility of a stray thunderstorm or two.
What is kind of interesting: We still have a Winter Weather Advisory until 11 p.m. Monday for the Beartooth Mountains. There's a possibility of another 2 to 4 inches above the 7,000-foot level. This would impact the Beartooth Pass.
The Doppler radar and satellite imagery shows the whole story for Monday. It's an upper-level, low-pressure cell, the same thing that hit us over the weekend, and it's now spinning its way across north-central Montana.
The wraparound moisture is still spinning its way from northwest Montana back down here to the south-central part of the state. And this is where we have our chance of rain showers the rest of Monday night and Tuesday.
The high-resolution forecast model shows scattered rain showers off and on all over most of Montana Monday afternoon.
But that stuff starts winding down by 6 p.m. Monday, and generally fair skies are expected across south-central Montana on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Our temperatures will continue to stay into the low 60s the rest of Monday then cool back down to the 40s overnight and back to the low 60s again Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.
In fact, we will top out at 68 degrees on Tuesday get into the 70s on Wednesday and finally into the 80s on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Next Sunday we will roll back down to the 70s.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy with a 50% chance for rain showers this evening. West winds 10 to 20 mph. Low 45 degrees.
TUESDAY: Mostly sunny with a 20% chance for rain showers in the afternoon. West winds 15 to 25 mph. High 68 degrees.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny and warmer. West winds 10 to 20 mph. High 74 degrees.
