MISSOULA — High pressure will give us one last nice day Thursday with highs in the 50s to even upper 60s before a change moves in later in the evening.
A cold front from the Pacific Northwest will push through overnight into Friday, allowing for very high mountain snow, valley rain and west winds gusting to 20 mph to 35 mph (slightly higher in the mountains).
Before the cooler air arrives, we'll see near-record warm temperatures expected across the region on Friday morning.
The heaviest precipitation looks to remain along the Montana/Idaho border and into Northwest Montana. Here we could see 0.20” - 0.70” of liquid precipitation in valley locations and 1”-2” in the higher terrain (think Cabinets, Purcells, Glacier National Park and into the Bob Marshall).
With the warmth, snow levels will be above pass level into Friday morning, but drop to around 5,000’ - 5,500' by Saturday morning. At that point, most moisture will have come and gone, so minimal impacts are expected.
The weekend will feature a few showers and above-average highs in the upper 40s to low 50s, along with some sun breaks from time to time. Of the two days, Sunday will be the drier one.
Late Sunday could showcase more widely scattered showers as another disturbance moves in along with a cooling trend.
Watch the 24/7 StormTracker Weather stream below:
