Missoula’s ‘Heat Wave’ Nothing Unusual says NWS Meteorologist

All this week, surface snow will be melting away with highs reaching the mid to upper 40’s throughout western Montana, according to the National Weather Service.

KGVO News spoke with Meteorologist Leeann Allegretto about the chance in Missoula’s weather this week.

“Oh, it's just high pressure,” began Allegretto. “High pressure is locked over the Pacific Northwest Coast and we're kind of on the eastern most fringe of that, so it's going to be a little breezy and a little cloudy since the high pressure region not directly over us, but it's going to help us to stay mild and keep everything dry for at least the next five days.”

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Allegretto said what will keep conditions somewhat normal are the overnight temperatures.

“We're not looking at record warmth, but certainly like 10 degrees above normal,” she said. “We've seen it before. If it stays mild during the day and then refreezes at night, then it does very little to us in the way of impacts, so there’s no flooding, no runoff, or anything like that. So it keeps stabilized because we're going to be below freezing at night.”

Allegretto said the National Weather Service would be alarmed if overnight temperatures also rose to levels far above normal.

“If we were to see overnight temperatures in the 40s and daytime temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s, then we'd be really worried,” she said. “Then we'd start to say ‘okay this is this is not normal’ but we're not looking at this as anything out of out of the ordinary.”

The forecast calls for overnight temperatures to stay in the mid to upper 20’s throughout the coming weekend, with highs in the 40’s.