BOZEMAN – Warning! MORNING COMMUTES WILL BE ICY this week. Please be ready for wet roads to turn to ice Sunday night into Monday morning especially over mountain passes but even down into the lower valleys icy roads will be the greatest impact to travel conditions around Montana.
Snow should be ending overnight and with some partial clearing skies temperatures will fall well below freezing ending up down in the teens and 20’s Monday morning. Again, the greatest weather hazard for traveling will be wet roads turning icy tonight into Monday morning. Extra travel time is needed even if you have good, studded Snow tires. Extra travel time, extra stopping distances, be patient and use good defensive driving skills.
The first couple of snowstorms always catch drivers off guard. I have given you plenty of advanced notice this was coming.
The current storm system will spin into eastern Montana tonight and continue to produce areas of snow across most of the eastern half of Montana through Monday afternoon. Winter Weather Advisory is up for most of eastern Montana now through noon Monday for 2"-5" of snow and localized wind gusts to 50 mph.
A NW flow will continue to pave the way for weak disturbances to pass through the state this week. This means there will be several more chances for snow especially over mountains and passes and more wintry travel conditions especially in the overnight and early morning hours. The next disturbance arrives Monday evening into Tuesday morning. After that, another disturbance arrives Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning.
Temperatures will remain below normal all week into the upcoming weekend. Daytime highs will be warm enough to begin melting valley snow and keeping roads wet. Overnight temperatures will fall well below freezing and this cycle will repeat with wet roads turning icy at night especially with additional snow off and on this week.
Here is a list of preliminary snow totals. It's still snowing in many areas at the time of this report.
