Happy Friday! We're heading into the final weekend of spring, and an active weather pattern continues to affect the West. A band of snow is exiting the state after a cold front passed through yesterday. This will lead to much cooler temperatures for our Friday, with most areas only reaching the mid to upper 30s and lower 40s. It will be a breezy day (10 to 20 mph for most) with increasing clouds in the afternoon and the possibility of an isolated flurry or light rain/snow shower.
The weekend is going to be unsettled, but we're mainly dealing with mountain snow as another Pacific storm system moves in. There could be a foot or two of snow in the higher peaks of the northern Rockies by Monday. Expect winter driving conditions if you plan to travel over mountain passes with up to 6 inches of snow possible at pass level. In the lower elevations, scattered rain and snow showers will occur throughout the weekend; however, more of the weekend will be dry than wet. We can expect partly to mostly cloudy skies both days.
Daytime highs will be cool on Saturday, with most locations ranging from the upper 30s to mid 40s. It will warm a bit on Sunday, with high temperatures reaching the mid to upper 40s and lower 50s. The wind turns stronger on Sunday, with wind speeds between 10 and 30 mph and gusts over 40 mph possible. As usual, even stronger winds are expected along the Rocky Mountain Front, where gusts of over 50 mph could occur on Sunday.
Scattered areas of rain and snow will continue throughout the region on St. Patrick's Day (Monday) as yet another disturbance passes through our area. The unsettled weather looks to continue into Tuesday before drier weather arrives next Wednesday, when some sunshine will return to our forecast. However, it will be fairly consistently breezy next week, with seasonable temperatures and highs in the upper 30s, 40s, and lower 50s.
Next Thursday marks the first day of spring! Spring officially begins at 3:01 AM MDT on that day.
