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Winter Storm Watch is up for Broadwater, Madison, Gallatin and southern Park counties for Thursday night through Saturday morning.

Conditions look favorable for snow accumulations of 3"-6" for the valleys including Bozeman, Ennis, Townsend and 10"-16" above 5,500' which includes West Yellowstone, Big Sky, Bozeman Pass on I-90, Raynolds Pass, Targhee pass and Battle Ridge pass.

Strong winds will likely develop Thursday through Friday and reduced visibilities are likely to fall under a half mile or more at times.

There is still some uncertainty how this storm will impact SW Montana and most likely the winter storm watch will change to a winter weather advisory or if conditions look good enough a winter storm warning may be issued. There are Winter Storm Warnings for central Montana mountains and for western Montana mountains over the next 48 hours, thus, all mountain passes will be impacted by this storm system.

Butte to Anaconda will see a mix of rain/snow Thursday with snow likely on Friday into Saturday morning. Right now there are no advisories, watches or warning up for the Butte are, however, look for several inches of snow over the next 2 to 3 days for the valleys and moderate snow over Homestake and MacDonald passes.

Strong winds will develop across the entire state of Montana over the next 2 days and for SW Montana SW winds 10 to 20 gusts to 30 mph will develop overnight and strengthen to 20 to 30 with gusts to 45 mph Thursday afternoon into Friday morning before diminishing back down to 10 to 20 mph N-NW winds by Saturday morning. The strong winds and colder air will keep wind chills in the single digits above and below zero at times and create localized blowing and drifting snow.