BOZEMAN – This week’s weather pattern will be more active across SW Montana as a Pacific cold front passes through and by the weekend a deep trough of low-pressure settles over the state producing cooler than temperatures and hopefully some rain.
The short-term pattern is unchanged and thick wildfire smoke continue to lift from California up into Montana producing unhealthy air quality conditions at times locally.
An AIR QUALITY ALERT continues until further notice for SW Montana. Conditions are re-evaluated every morning and late afternoon from MDEQ. But so far particulates have exceeded the 24 hour National Ambient Air Quality Standards thus the alert continues.
As of 1 pm Monday air quality rating was in the “unhealthy” range for most of SW Montana.
The other concern in the forecast is severe damaging thunderstorms over SW Montana Tuesday afternoon and early evening.
The Storm Prediction Center has a “Slight” risk for damaging thunderstorms Tuesday afternoon and evening from Dillon to Butte to Bozeman.
This means there will likely be several storms producing damaging large hail and/or damaging outflow wind gusts.
Frequent lightning and hopefully some brief heavy rain are also possible with storms Tuesday. The lightning threat is a concern for possible new fire starts.
The above on-demand STORMTracker video forecast will walk you through the timing, location, and intensity of possible storms Tuesday. Updates on the forecast and air quality is coming up tonight at 5:30 pm and 10 pm on KXLF and KBZK.
