A quick blast of cold air expected Saturday night, with heavy snow
A raven sits on a snowbank in Glacier National Park.
Folks heading out to the Whitefish Carnival this weekend might want to bundle up. An intrusion of arctic air is expected to swipe the Flathead Saturday, with 8 to 12 inches of snow by Monday.
The cold air from the east should push in Saturday afternoon, said National Weather Service meteorologist Corby Dickerson.
Saturday night lows could drop to the low teens to single digits in the West Glacier area, with winds in the 30 to 40 mph range.
The arctic air isn’t expected to last long — it should push out by Sunday morning, with winds shifting to the west. More snow — possibly heavy at times — should fall Sunday into Monday.
While it was a wet and gray January, the snow has been beneficial to the region’s snowpack. The Flathead River Basin snowpack is now about 124 percent of average.