textproduct: Billings

KEY MESSAGES

- Warming trend and mostly dry Friday through Monday; expect mountain snow melt to increase river flows.

- Chance of thunderstorms by middle of next week.

UPDATE

High elevation snow in the Bighorns has tapered to light snow showers and flurries, and have cancelled the Winter Weather Advisory. Snotels show 4-8" accumulations in the Bighorns today. Area of precip has lightened considerably over the past few hours, as it continues to shift eastward. There is still energy lifting out of eastern WY so expect showers to spread into our far east this evening, but baroclinicity is fading and precip amounts will be lighter than expected earlier (up to 0.10-0.20"). Additionally, the instability axis has shifted into the western Dakotas so the t-storm risk in our far east has ended. To the west, we are seeing isolated weak diurnal convection on the back side of the trof, where mesoanalysis shows up to ~200 j/kg of cape under the colder air aloft. This will persist into the early evening but should taper off by sunset. Showers near the Dakotas border may linger into early Friday morning, otherwise it will be a quiet night of weather with low temps dropping to the 30s. In fact, the record low for May 22 at Livingston is 27F and could be challenged. JKL

AVIATION

00z Discussion...

An area of rain will continue to move eastwards which will result in sites such as KMLS/KSHR occasionally dipping to MVFR through 04z. Father east towards KBHK, transient MVFR conditions will continue through most of the period. KBIL/KLVM will see scattered showers through roughly the same time (04z). These showers are convective in nature and thus erratic winds near these showers should be anticipated. A stray strike of lightning cannot be ruled out. Winds will remain light across all sites for the duration of the period with a NW component. Mountains will be fully obscured through 06z and partially obscured through 15z. WMR

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMP/POPS

Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu ----------------------------------------------------------- BIL 039/068 043/078 050/086 054/090 056/087 054/078 052/079 10/U 00/U 00/U 00/U 12/T 44/W 22/T LVM 030/065 038/075 046/082 048/084 049/078 045/071 044/073 22/W 10/U 00/U 01/U 15/T 56/T 34/T HDN 036/068 039/078 046/087 050/090 053/088 053/078 050/081 20/U 00/U 00/U 00/U 11/B 44/W 23/T MLS 039/068 040/077 047/086 052/091 059/091 057/080 054/082 20/U 00/U 00/U 00/U 01/N 23/W 22/T 4BQ 038/064 039/075 046/085 052/090 059/089 056/078 053/079 50/U 01/U 00/U 00/U 01/N 33/T 32/T BHK 037/064 036/075 043/085 052/091 058/089 056/079 052/079 72/W 00/U 00/U 00/U 00/N 24/W 33/T SHR 030/064 034/072 039/081 044/086 047/086 046/075 044/078 40/U 01/U 00/U 01/U 01/N 45/T 33/T

BYZ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MT...None. WY...None.