BILLINGS — On Thursday afternoon in the Big Sky, the only thing we can see in those big skies is more big sky and maybe a few big mountains.
There's a little snow up in the mountains, but we can always use more this time of year. In Billings, in the early afternoon, it was 44 degrees with mostly sunny skies and a southwest wind at 26 mph gusting to 32 mph.
Around the rest of the state, we are in the 30s out in the far west, 50s up around Cut Bank and Great Falls and back east of the Divide, nothing but 40s and 50s.
Even Sheridan, Wyoming, was 54 degrees and Cody, on the other side of the Bighorn mountains, was 27.
The Doppler radar and satellite imagery shows a dry scope from one side of Montana to the other.
The high-resolution forecast model says the same thing, but we might start to see a few cloudy skies roll into the northwest corner of the state on Friday morning.
Those cloudy skies start moving toward Billings but fall apart before they get here.
Then on Saturday morning, another batch of clouds moves into north-central Montana from Canada and does an end run around the Billings area.
We will top out at 41 degrees at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, then cool back down to the 30s in the morning and back up to 49 degrees by 1:30 p.m. Friday.
We will top out at 52 degrees on Friday and keep it in the 50s through the weekend and pop up to 56 degrees on Tuesday, then drop back down to 51 by Wednesday of next week.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly clear, breezy and mild. Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Low 30 degrees.
FRIDAY: Sunny and warmer. Southwest winds 10 to 20 mph. High 52 degrees.
SATURDAY: Sunny and warm. Southwest winds 5 to 15 mph. High 52 degrees.
