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131
FXUS65 KTFX 072157
AFDTFX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Great Falls MT
256 PM MST Sat Mar 7 2026

Aviation Section Updated

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Strong to very strong winds are expected Sunday, with strong
winds primarily along the Rocky Mountain Front and across the
North Central Plains.
- Multiple rounds of light, mainly mountain, snow through the
week, including a round along a cold front Sunday night/Monday
morning.
- Yet another round of widespread strong winds looks likely on
Thursday.

&&

.DISCUSSION...

- Meteorological Overview:

Upper level ridging over the area today will break down tonight
and tomorrow as an upper level trough moves through Central
British Columbia and Alberta. As this occurs, a strong upper level
jet streak will develop over the Northern US, which will result
in the development of mountain waves in the lee of the Rocky
Mountain Front. This will bring strong winds from aloft to the
surface, resulting in strong to very strong winds to the Rocky
Mountain Front and North Central Plains on Sunday, with gusts of
90-100 mph expected along the Front and gusts in excess of 65 to
the Plains, with some gusts in excess of 70 in some of the wind
prone areas on the Plains. Winds will taper off Sunday afternoon
and evening from north to south as a cold front slides in from
Alberta.

Overall zonal/westerly flow will set up across the area Monday
and Tuesday, which will result in cooler but still breezy and
unsettled weather with gusty winds on the plains and some light
mountain snowfall across the area. Overall, Monday and Tuesday do
not look overly impactful, though the continued winds may hamper
any recovery work that needs to be done after Sunday.

Our next period of more impactful weather will be Wednesday and
Thursday as yet another significant jet streak pushes into the
Northern Rockies. While there is still naturally quite a bit of
uncertainty, it is worth mentioning that there is some potential
for Thursday to be a rather significant event for at least
portions of the area and for some could produce the strongest wind
gusts of the season, but I will talk about this more below.

While upper level and surface winds taper off Friday and
Saturday, models seem to be in good agreement that a round of
snowfall is likely as we close out the week.

- Forecast Confidence & Scenarios:

Winds Sunday: Confidence is fairly high (70-80%+) in a widespread
strong to very strong wind event across the North Central Plains
and Rocky Mountain Front tomorrow as a jet streak across the
region. Most model solutions are showing a robust jet streak with
700 mb winds of 50-80kts (~60 to 90 mph) moving across the Divide
tomorrow, which will result in widespread downsloping/mountain
wave activity across the region. These winds will translate to
wind gusts of up to 90-100 mph along the Rocky Mountain Front
(where pressure gradient forces and mountain waves will cause some
local accelerations of the winds as they move towards the
surface), while further east across the plains wind gusts of 60-70
mph will be expected to be common for much of the day. There are
a few ways for things to wind up not as intense (or at least not
as long duration), however. The first will be the formation of a
chinook arch, which may limit the thermal mixing component further
east across the plains. This would reduce the opportunity for
wind gusts to repeatedly reach the upper end of what is possible
tomorrow, though mountain waves will still result in localized
wind gusts to the upper end of the forecast envelope tomorrow. The
other potential limiting factor will be the arrival of a cold
front from Alberta, which will more or less undercut the winds as
soon as or very shortly after it pushes through the area. Current
model runs have tried to bring this cold front in during the mid
to late afternoon, but models do sometimes tend to underestimate
the speed at which cold air can propagate southward. If this front
moves through earlier in the day, it would reduce just how long
the winds will last tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday winds: Models are in unusually good agreement that yet
another (and possibly stronger) upper level jet streak affecting
the area on Thursday. While I hesitate to start sounding the
alarm on an event before a separate event has even started, I
will note that current model guidance for the Thursday event is
concerning for a few reasons. First is that models are quite
consistent in their handling of this event, though I will admit
that this may be limiting my view of the possibilities of how this
event will unfold. However, the solutions that are presented both
show 700 mb winds of 60-90kts (70-100 mph), and 500 mb winds in
the 90-110kt range (100-130 mph), which would make this event
stronger than the one tomorrow, with the core of these winds
primed to affect mainly Central and Southwestern Montana. At this
point, it is a bit difficult to say just how efficiently these
winds would mix to the surface. I will, however, note that some
indices are eerily reminiscent of what we were seeing at similar
lead times to a very impactful event earlier this season. While
the wind event tomorrow will remain our focus for the next 24 to
36 hours, we will be keeping a very watchful eye on the forecast
for Thursday as well. Ludwig

&&

.AVIATION...
07/18Z TAF Period

Strong winds will affect portions of North Central MT this evening,
while expanding to all of North Central MT and the northern portions
of SW MT on Sun. Expect increasing clouds on Sun afternoon,
especially over N Central MT, along with a cold front moving
southward into N Central MT towards 00z Mon. Brusda

&&

.FIRE WEATHER...

Strong winds on Sunday will result in increased fire danger across
the plains of North Central Montana, even with RH values in the
20-30 percent range. Winds are expected to continue to be gusty
through the early afternoon, but a cold front coming in from the
north will bring both a wind shift to the north and a rapid
decrease in wind speeds. Ludwig

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
GTF 46 59 31 43 / 10 10 50 20
CTB 43 53 17 35 / 0 50 80 30
HLN 39 59 34 45 / 10 10 40 40
BZN 32 59 34 48 / 10 0 10 40
WYS 26 43 29 45 / 30 20 20 40
DLN 32 56 36 50 / 0 0 0 10
HVR 41 58 20 41 / 10 30 90 40
LWT 40 59 29 41 / 0 10 50 50

&&

.TFX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
High Wind Warning until midnight MST Sunday night for East
Glacier Park Region-Eastern Glacier, Western Toole, and Central
Pondera-Judith Basin County and Judith Gap-Northern High Plains-
Southern High Plains-Southern Rocky Mountain Front.

High Wind Warning from 3 AM Sunday to midnight MST Sunday night
for Bears Paw Mountains and Southern Blaine-Big Belt, Bridger
and Castle Mountains-Canyon Ferry Area-Cascade County below
5000ft-Eastern Pondera and Eastern Teton-Eastern Toole and
Liberty-Elkhorn and Boulder Mountains-Fergus County below 4500ft-
Gates of the Mountains-Helena Valley-Hill County-Little Belt and
Highwood Mountains-Meagher County Valleys-Missouri Headwaters-
Northern Blaine County-Snowy and Judith Mountains-Upper
Blackfoot and MacDonald Pass-Western and Central Chouteau County.

High Wind Watch from 3 AM MST Sunday through Sunday evening for
Gallatin Valley.

&&

$$
http://www.weather.gov/greatfalls

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