BOZEMAN – A slight improvement in overall travel conditions today for SW Montana with less snow and blowing snow.
The far eastern half of Montana along with most of North and South Dakota are under a BLIZZARD WARNING through Friday morning.
Blowing and drifting snow will create dangerous conditions and numerous road closures including I-94 in North Dakota and I-90 in South Dakota.
A very large High-pressure ridge is building over the Gulf of Alaska and creating a strong northerly flow aloft for Montana. This will open the door for Arctic air to sweep across most of the northern half of the country beginning this weekend and throughout all of next week.
Temperatures will be running 10 to 25 degrees below normal next week and morning lows will likely fall below zero. The coldest of temperatures should impact North and South Dakota into the Great Lakes. Far eastern Montana will see some of the coldest temperatures next week. West and SW Montana will see much colder temperatures as well but the main thrust of cold air should be to our east.
A few disturbances will produce increasing areas of snow again by the middle of next week and that should also help keep our temperatures up slightly compared to the rest of the state but the tradeoff is wintry travel conditions.
