Missoula To Get A Taste of Winter By The Weekend

The last few days of fall sunshine will give way to a taste of winter by the end of the work week and into the weekend.

Meteorologist Luke Robinson with the National Weather Service office in Missoula said the initial changes will begin late Wednesday night.

"We could be looking at our first inches of snow for a lot of valleys here in western Montana," said Robinson. "We'll start seeing some snow by Wednesday night through Thursday morning up in northwest Montana with a cold front coming south out of Canada. Then, we'll see a movement of even colder air and moisture coming into the area by Thursday night into Friday."

Robinson said snow that can be measured in inches will arrive by the weekend.

"The highest confidence for accumulating snowfall will be in northwest Montana, but we'll still be watching it closely and we feel that even the Missoula valley could see a little snow by Saturday morning," he said. "We have the potential for two to four inches here in Missoula. It's not a slam-dunk but we're also expecting six inches-plus up in the Kalispell area."

Robinson said those attending the Montana Grizzly football game on Saturday should be prepared to have snow falling during the game.

"We could have areas of rain and snow mixing together, but we could see some accumulation on the field on Saturday," he said.

Robinson said the temperatures will remain cold through the weekend with the possibility of another weather system by the end of next week.