textproduct: Glasgow

KEY MESSAGES

- Scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms through this evening hours. Erratic, gusty winds can be expected with a few of these storms potentially severe.

- A strong cold front will bring much colder conditions beginning tonight. General rain Thursday morning will transition to snow for some and linger into Saturday.

- High Wind Warning Thursday until 8pm across NE Montana for gusts to 60 mph.

DISCUSSION

WEATHER PATTERN OVERVIEW: The next several days will be highly variable with strong swings in temperatures, winds, precipiation amounts, and precipitation types. The 500-mb height field is characterized by a strong ridge of high pressure through the eastern Rockies and High Plains regions through today. This is bringing near record high temperatures to many locations.

Late this afternoon and evening, an approaching strong low pressure system from the Great Basin and the Northern and Central Rocky Mountain Regions will provide enough of an unstable atmosphere to allow rain showers and isolated thunderstorms to develop. Convective outlook from SPC has a marginal risk for severe thunderstorms, with the large temperature/dewpoint spread supporting strong wind gusts which are evident in HREF max wind gusts during this time span. The limiting factor may actually be too limited moisture which could limit convection in some locations in the south/east.

As the system winds up and matures over our region, a strong cold front will sweep down from Saskatchewan generating rain Thursday (with wet snow at highest elevations such as Opheim). This prompted a Winter Weather Advisory for northern Valley county Thursday morning. A High Wind Warning was raised Thursday until 8pm across the area for occasional gusts to around 60mph being likely and pockets of 40mph sustained winds. An additional shortwave passing through Friday presents a chance for more widespread snow showers. Gusty winds continue through Friday's system as well.

FORECAST CONFIDENCE & DEVIATIONS:

Made a few deviations for increasing thunderstorm chances today and detail/strength of winds on Thursday. Confidence is moderate on the extent of severe wind gusts this evening and high for scattered wind gusts to 60 mph on Thursday.

AVIATION

UPDATED: 2030Z

FLIGHT CONDITION: VFR to IFR.

DISCUSSION: Scattered rain showers and isolated thunderstorms are expected in the late afternoon and evening hours today. Light rain will become more steady (particularly at GGW) after midnight with MVFR to IFR ceilings by mid-morning Thursday. There is a slight chance that thunderstorms produce erratic severe gusty winds in the late afternoon and early evening hours near the terminals. Currently chances are too low to include in the TAFs directly.

WIND: Veering toward the SW late this afternoon with gusts up to 25 kts. Veering farther to the W and NW after midnight and increasing to 20 to 30 kts gust 45 kts by Thursday morning.

GGW WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

Red Flag Warning until 9 PM MDT this evening for Dawson/McCone/Prairie/Richland/Wibaux Counties-Fort Peck Reservation and Daniels/Roosevelt/Sheridan Counties-Northern Valley and Northern Phillips Counties-Southern Petroleum and Southern Garfield Counties-The Little Rockies-The Lower Missouri River Breaks including the Charles M Russell National Wildlife Refuge.

High Wind Warning from midnight tonight to 8 PM MDT Thursday for Central and Southeast Phillips-Central and Southern Valley- Garfield-Northern Phillips-Northern Valley-Petroleum-Southwest Phillips.

High Wind Warning from 6 AM to 8 PM MDT Thursday for Daniels- Dawson-Eastern Roosevelt-McCone-Prairie-Richland-Sheridan- Western Roosevelt-Wibaux.

Winter Weather Advisory from 6 AM to 2 PM MDT Thursday for Northern Valley.