Happy July! A wet end to June will continue for the beginning of July into Independence Day as showers and storms continue to pepper the state with below average temperatures. This is good news considering the upcoming holiday and the possibility of new wildfire starts with people lighting off fireworks. Side note - I love fireworks but I'd like to stress being safe and avoiding starting new fires. Tuesday will be another partly cloudy day with scattered showers and thunderstorms. Not everyone will get wet but there will be other locations that get hit several times. Highs will be close to average in the 70s to around 80. Another disturbance will move through the state on Wednesday with more showers and thunderstorms. This pattern of systems dropping south out of Canada will keep the moisture around and the temperatures from getting hot. Wednesday will be partly to mostly cloudy with widespread showers and thunderstorms. highs will be below average, topping out in the 60s and 70s. Northwest wind will gust up to 20mph. Thursday is Independence Day. The holiday will feature mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies. There will be a few isolated thunderstorms, especially across the eastern half of the state. High pressure will start moving in which will allow for the storms to start drying up. Highs on the holiday will be a few degrees cooler than average in the 70s to near 80. Friday will be a bit warmer of a day with highs reaching the 80s under mostly sunny skies. A stray thunderstorm is possible over eastern Montana. Saturday will be toasty with highs in the 80s to around 90 with the chance of a few thunderstorms late in the evening. Sunday will be a beautiful day to round out the holiday with mostly sunny skies and highs in the 80s. Next week, the season's first major heat will likely build across Montana and most of the west with temperatures that should hit and exceed 100 degrees. Enjoy the relative cool weather until then.
Have a great day,
Curtis Grevenitz
Chief Meteorologist
