BILLINGS — As promised, Billings is beginning to see a little light smoke move back into the area today. However, the temperatures still feel like room temperature at 73 degrees here in the early afternoon.
Light smoke continues to wrap around an upper level high pressure cell over Utah and the smoke continues to spin its way from California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and all across Montana and into the rest of the northern plains.
Air quality in Billings has changed little bit, from good to moderate now. The rest of Montana has good to moderate air quality as well, on Tuesday.
Our current temps are mostly into the 50s to 80s across the state with Eastern Montana getting most of the 80s in the extreme Northeast corner. Sheridan, Wyoming, is seeing an 80 degree reading there also.
The Doppler radar and satellite imagery shows a fresh supply of moisture streaming in from the Southwest. We saw this yesterday move onshore and is finally starting to make its way into Montana this afternoon.
At the same time a new cold front drops down from Canada, but we think it won't make it as far as Billings. So, Billings will continue to stay fairly warm the rest of Tuesday.
On Wednesday night, that becomes a full-fledged warm front and starts cooking things up very nicely by the time Thursday gets here.
It will be 83 degrees in Billings at 5:30 p.m. tonight. Then we cool back down into the 50s in the morning and back up to 72 degrees at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
We will top out at 81 on Wednesday, up to 87 on Thursday, then back down into the 60s on Friday and Saturday and the mid-70s on Sunday and Monday.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Patchy smoke early this evening, then mostly cloudy skies with a slight chance for showers and thunderstorms early in the evening. Then partly cloudy skies with a slight chance for rain showers late in the evening, with clearing skies overnight. Northwest winds 5 to 15 mph. Chance of rain is 20%. Low 50°
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny and warmer. Southwest winds 5 to 15 mph. High 81°.
THURSDAY: Partly sunny and warmer still. Southwest winds 10 to 20 mph. High 87°.
