Weather

Take your pick. It's all bad. Beaverhead, Big Horn, Broadwater, Carbon, Carter, Cascade, Chouteau, Custer, Deer Lodge, Fallon, Fergus, Gallatin, Glacier, Golden Valley, Granite, Jefferson, Judith Basin, Lake, Lewis and Clark, Liberty, Madison, Meagher, Missoula, Musselshell, Park, Petroleum, Pondera, Powder River, Powell, Ravalli, Rosebud, Silver Bow, Stillwater, Sweet Grass, Teton, Treasure, Toole, Wheatland, and Yellowstone counties.

The Air Quality Index around southwest Montana was bad all weekend. Then it became even worse on Monday into seriously unhealthy levels.

A little rain this week was nice but not enough to significantly reduce our fire weather conditions across the state of Montana. There is a Red Flag Warning in effect until at least Friday night, and will probably be extended as temps are expected to rise over the weekend.

Yet again, most of the counties in eastern Montana are in for a painfully hot day on Thursday. An Excessive Heat Warning is in effect with temperatures expect to be as high as 103 for several towns.

The heat and the haze continue for the entire state of Montana this week. Air Quality Index numbers certainly fluctuate but at this point we're fluctuating between levels of 'bad'. Where are the hot spots today for poor air quality?

Why have one advisory when you can worry about two or more? Gallatin County along with several others across Montana are struggling with another day of extremely hot and dry conditions.

Wildfire smoke has absolutely saturated the state of Montana. Missoula, Butte, Helena and Bozeman all have some of the worst air quality numbers in the entire United States, with some AQI numbers ranking worse than Jakarta, Indonesia or Delhi, India. That's really bad.

Scary hot temperatures are coming to several counties in Montana this weekend and into next week. An Excessive Heat Watch covers almost half of the state with triple digit temperatures coming for several days in a row.

Well, it means a few important things. Not least of which could be water usage surcharges if we're not careful. Smart landscape watering is the main goal to reduce Bozeman's water usage during this dry summer.

One of southwest Montana's most beautiful places is on fire. The fire has doubled in size in the last 24 hours. More than 2,200 acres between Hidden Lake and Cliff lake are burning with the cause still unknown. The whole area of Cliff Lake, Wade Lake and Hidden Lake are now closed to the public.

Several counties in Montana are already expecting triple digit temperatures on Sunday with continued dry conditions. Fire weather is certainly upon us and extreme caution should be used this weekend.

The Gallatin Valley was blanketed by a fresh layer of wildfire smoke on Friday morning that you could actually taste.