Take it Seriously! Dangerous Cold Settles on Western Montana
Forecasters with the National Weather Service Office in Missoula say Western Montana is still on track for "near record" cold temperatures Thursday morning.
And there's still a chance we could even see some records fall.
Forecaster Trent Smith said the latest information still shows Missoula with the coldest day in 9 years and coming close to readings not seen in 40 years.
"That's still the anticipation. We are still continuing with a low here in Missoula of - 31 degrees come Thursday morning."
Cold, but how cold?
The question is whether Missoula might hit the all-time cold weather reading of 33-below from January 1957. Or stop short of the record, and the forecast low.
Smith explains a lot depends on the exact conditions Thursday morning.
"We have to have a clear night and we have to have calm winds. Even if we don't hit - 31, we'll still probably be in like - 20 to - 25 range," Smith said. "We're fairly confident in that. But we'll probably have a little bit of wind, even just a slight breeze of five to 10 mph. With that cold, avoid temperatures of - 20 will easily drop us into the - 40 to - 50 range for wind chills."
Frostbite is possible in as little as 5 minutes.
Forecasters are still anticipating a warmup as we approach Christmas Day. And in fact, Montana will see a rather dramatic turnaround this coming week. While it will remain below freezing at night, daytime highs might be consistently in the 40-plus degree range all of next week. That should help melt the snow some, but not our memories of this exceptionally cold fall season.
READ MORE: Missoula has already had a miserable fall, even before winter's start