As expected, clouds
prevented particularly strong radiational cooling last night. Not only that,
but as the clouds came in, the winds suddenly strengthened a lot, with
temperatures warming to 67F and wind reaching at least 21 kt late at night! Looks
like the combination of enhanced westerly flow and downslope warming right
ahead of the cold front as well as clouds stopping radiational cooling did the
trick. Mountain locations are always difficult to forecast. Since then, temperatures have been mostly steady throughout the day today with cold advection behind the cold front competing with solar heating. It's still warmer than modeled. Winds will die down late tonight, leading to good radiational cooling, with only USL really showing the cool down well. With surface high pressure building over Montana, winds will be light tomorrow with clear skies and little temperature advection, and temperatures will warm up quickly during the daytime. Like on Tuesday, it may take a while to completely mix out the nocturnal inversion, but it likely will not take as long and should have an easier time getting warmer than modeled, though cirrus moving in late in the afternoon just as the high normally occurs could lower the high by 1F or so.
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