BILLINGS — Just look at that beautiful blue sky out there Tuesday in Billings. Yes, it's a little on the cool side, but we are warming up.
Billings is already warmed up to 19 degrees in the early afternoon and is expected to get a little bit higher as the day goes on.
Around the rest of the state, temps are mostly to the 20s and 30s, but across south-central Montana were still mostly into the teens.
The threat board is starting to fill up because the next storm is getting ready to make its way out of western Montana and move farther eastward into the state.
We have several Winter Storm Watches most of western and southwestern Montana and parts of northwestern Wyoming. The snow starts Tuesday night at around Missoula, where we could see 5 to 9 inches of snow .
Wednesday into Thursday could see 3 to 6 inches of snow in the valleys around Great Falls and 6 to 12 inches up in the mountains.
Over the Beartooth and Bighorn mountains, we could see as much as 12 to 24 inches of snow with 6 to 12 inches in the foothills. This looks to be another major snow event for the mountains of southwestern Montana and northwestern Wyoming.
At this point in time, it looks like the jet stream will take the moisture and steer it around the Billings area and drive it straight down into Wyoming.
The high-resolution forecast model shows the next system starts moving to western Montana Tuesday night and gets closer to Billings by the morning. However, most of the moisture continues to stay off to the south and west of Billings.
In fact, it seems to jump over us on Thursday morning and produce more snow in eastern Montana by Thursday afternoon.
What remains to the west of Billings on Thursday afternoon will move in on Friday and give us a good shot at snow then.
The computer models estimate that Billings will see light snow with the heavier stuff falling around Bozeman, Livingston, Butte and Missoula.
Our temperatures are expected to stay mostly in the 20s for the next few hours and then jump up into the low 30s early Wednesday afternoon. We top out at 35 degrees on Wednesday, the upper 30s and 40s Thursday through Saturday and back down to the 20s Sunday.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Increasing clouds and breezy with patchy blowing snow. Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Low 15 degrees.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy, breezy and not as cold. Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph with wind chill factors as low as 10 below zero in the morning. High 35 degrees.
THURSDAY: Turning cloudy in the afternoon, With a 60% chance of Snow likely in the morning then a chance for snow showers in the afternoon. West winds 10 to 20 mph. High 40 degrees.
