Dress warm for Carnival - arctic air headed this way
Hundreds lined Central Avenue Saturday for the 58th annual Whitefish Winter Carnival Grand Parade. This year’s theme was “One Fish, Two Fish, Whitefish” a nod to the many colorful Dr. Seuss children books. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Folks heading out to the Whitefish Winter 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.
The Saturday high is expected to be near 37 degrees for Whitefish, however, the forecast is calling for gusts of wind as high as 25 mph. Saturday night lows could drop to the teens in, with winds in the 30 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.