A FIRE WEATHER WATCH has been issued for most of central and western Montana for Saturday and Sunday.
The first weekend of August could be an extremely fiery one with hot temperatures and strong wind across all of Montana. There is some good news - the air quality improved just enough that the state is no longer under an Air Quality Alert. However, more smoke from wildfires in Oregon could increase over the next few days. Montana's wildfires are increasing and growing. The weather this weekend with the wind and heat will likely cause of some of these fires to get out of control. Please do everything you can to not start fires, and be safe. Thursday will be a hot and smoky day with an isolated storm up in the northeast part of the state. Not much change as far as temperatures go, with afternoon highs reaching the 90s. Friday will be a hot and smoky day, but the wind will start to pick up. Highs will be in the 90s to near 100 with a southwest wind gusting as high as 20-25mph. Saturday will be a hot, smoky and windy day with extremely high fire danger. Some gusts could top 30mph and highs will be in the 90s and low 100s. The wind and heat will precede a cold front that will move through Montana on Sunday. This front will bring more gusty wind to the state on Sunday, but temperatures will begin to cool. Highs will top out in the 80s and 90s. Some of northwest Montana including the Cut Bank area could have highs only in the 70s. Sunday night will be a cool night with many places dropping into the 40s. Monday will be mostly sunny and much cooler with highs in the 70s and 80. Unfortunately the air quality may not improve much as the wildfires in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia will not see significant precipitation. However, the change in wind this weekend may blow some of the smoke out of the picture for a few days.
Have a great day,
Curtis Grevenitz
Chief Meteorologist
