Arctic front expected to blow in Monday

The Daily Inter Lake

The National Weather Service in Missoula is giving Western Montana residents a heads-up about a bitterly cold arctic weather system that will be entering the region early next week.

An advisory issued Friday states that 1 to 3 inches of light snow should fall by Monday morning, followed by gusty winds from the northeast in advance of an extremely cold arctic air mass that will spill over the Continental Divide.

“Wind-chill readings Monday night and Tuesday night will likely fall well below zero in most areas of Western Montana,” the advisory states.

The lowest temperatures will come only after the full body of arctic air settles in over the region.

“Though confidence in the details of temperatures hinge upon very challenging elements to forecast, such as cloud cover, the potential exists for this arctic punch to be more potent than the one experienced in December,” the advisory states.

The Weather Service predicts  overnight lows of minus 1 on Monday, minus 10 Tuesday and minus 9 Wednesday. Daytime highs are predicted to be 10 degrees above zero.