Wed. through Sun., Feb. 28– March 4
Continued cool with a chance of snow. Lows in the upper teens to mid 20s with near 20 around 5,000 feet. Highs in the mid 30s to lower 40s with lower to mid 20s around 5,000 feet.
In-depth weather discussion for Northwest Montana/Rockies
Issued Sunday, Feb. 25 at 4:30 p.m.
A day of blowing snow and steady snowfall for Sunday will wind down this evening giving way to a more settled day on Monday with only isolated snow showers about and mainly over the mountains. For this evening the snow will clear from the west and most areas should see snow end by late evening with generally mostly cloudy skies lingering. Winds will also decrease this evening as the surface low over Southern Canada continues to fill and move off into Saskatchewan. Another 2 to 3 inches of snow is possible in the valleys with mountains seeing perhaps an additional 4 to 6 inches before things let up overnight. As stated earlier, a much more settled day on Monday with just isolated snow showers around and those mainly over the mountains and much lighter winds. Northwest flow will continue for most of the week and that will allow for below average temperatures with periods of snow showers to move through just about every day although none of these systems look terribly heavy at this time. A more widespread and impactful snow still looks like it may move in around Thursday into Friday with the cold upper level trough lingering over the region through the weekend. Temperatures will continue to run colder than average through the rest of the week and snow levels should remain below all valley floors but we will be into March by the end of this week so impacts to paved surfaces will become much more dependent on the time of day that snow falls along with the intensity that it falls too with any snowfall accumulation during the daylight hours much more dependent on the intensity of the falling snow with snow much more likely to melt on contact now unless the intensity is heavy enough to overcome the melting while snowfall during overnight hours will still easily accumulate. The main takeaway here is that even though meteorological Spring begins on Thursday, March 1st we are still officially in winter and we do live in Northwest Montana so snow is to be expected as the main precipitation type.