MISSOULA — Snow will be widespread across west-central and southwest Montana Wednesday morning with another several inches possible for locations in the southern Mission Valley south through Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley. Most of the accumulating snow today will fall in the morning with just light off and on snow showers this afternoon. Northwest Montana stays mostly dry but cold today with highs only in the teens.
Heavy snow is expected Wednesday night into Thursday across western Montana with one main detail to keep an eye on. Precipitation will start as snow for all of western Montana Wednesday night, however, the air mass that is bringing all this moisture is a warm one. This means, snow will begin to change to a rain/snow mix or even freezing rain through the day Thursday into Friday. This transition looks to start in the Bitterroot Valley around late morning on Thursday then slowly work its way north reaching the Flathead Valley by early Friday morning. These temperatures will play a huge roll in how much snow we end up seeing. However, even with that being said, significant snow fall is expected with 2-to-3 feet in the mountains and 5"-to-12" in the valleys.
Mountain snow continues Friday while valleys see rain/snow showers with highs in the mid 30s to low 40s.
A high pressure ridge builds this week leading to much quieter and dry weather. This high pressure looks to then stay in place moving into next week.
