WEATHER DISCUSSION: Cool and sometimes mild temperatures continue in North Central with high temperatures ranging in the 40’s and 50’s. Mostly cloudy skies continue into the overnight hours with low temperatures expected in the 30’s and 40’s. Breezy and windy conditions will be expected across most of the region tonight with wind gusts up to 75 mph along the Rocky Mountain Front.
On Monday, temperatures warm up even more into the mild 50’s and 60’s. A small, upper air disturbance with moisture being advected in from an atmospheric river in the Pacific NW. An atmospheric river is a long, narrow band of concentrated water vapor in the atmosphere, like a "river in the sky," that can transport significant amounts of moisture. This river will allow another round of snow at higher elevations and lower elevation rain for the rest of today and Monday.
Best snow accumulations will be along the Little Belts, where northwest flow aloft will enhance snowfall a little bit. There are reasonable chances for accumulation exceeding 9 inches at the highest elevations of the Little Belts. However, at pass level and below, the probabilities drop off significantly. The expected impacts are high enough to warrant the current Winter Weather Advisory that will last until 6 pm on Monday. The advisory also includes the Highwood mountains. Warm temperatures this afternoon and tonight will most likely result in slushy and slippery road conditions.
Strong winds build in this evening that will bring gusty winds to the Rocky Mountain Front, expanding east out to the plains on Monday. These chinook winds combined with an upper- level ridge building in will warm up temperatures to well above average for most of the work week ahead. High temperatures will warm up into the 60s Tuesday at lower elevations and can reach the low 70s across the North-Central MT plains Wednesday and Thursday. Towards the latter half of the week, a more active pattern returns through the weekend as a longwave trough moves through the region.
