City by City Forecast:

BOZEMAN: LOW: 51°; HIGH FRIDAY: 96°. Hot day and smoky pattern for at least another 24 hours. Friday look for near record highs. During these extreme heat waves please take it easy to avoid heat stress problems.

BUTTE: LOW: 52°; HIGH FRIDAY: 96°. Hot day and smoky.

DILLON: LOW: 52°; HIGH FRIDAY: 95°. Hot day and smoky.

WEST YELLOWSTONE: LOW: 42°; HIGH FRIDAY: 87°. Hot day and smoky.

 NEXT WEATHER MAKER: 

Hottest temperatures of the summer season are hear now and will continue into Friday and Saturday. Forecast highs statewide will reach the low to mid 90s today with 100°+ likely across northern Montana. Friday the entire state will likely burn under 95° to 110° highs. 

The next weather maker will be a mostly dry cold front Saturday. This front will bring increasing surface winds Friday into Saturday and critical fire weather will develop with hot temperatures, humidity below 20% and wind gusts 20 to 40 mph. During these critical fire weather events, human caused fire activity increases. Please use common sense with all outdoor activities Friday and Saturday.

Behind that front temperatures will begin to cool down by Sunday.

Below is an experimental high resolution weather model for wildfire smoke and it clearly shows much of the western U.S., pacific NW and northern Rockies will see widespread impacts of smoke into the weekend.

FIRE WATCH

There is a FIRE WEATHER WATCH up for most of SW Montana Friday afternoon through Saturday evening.

Increasing surface winds ahead of and along a surface dry cold front is likely to develop mostly on Saturday with possible gusts over 20 mph. 

The combination of 90° to 100°, relative humidity values under 20% and stiff surface winds will create extreme and erratic fire behavior.

During such weather events human triggered fires are the greatest concern and small fires can quickly explode out of control. Please use common sense with all outdoor activities Friday through Sunday.