Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, decoded into plain English

Plaincast

What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.

Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Billings, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.

Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service Billings (BYZ) · issued Friday, September 11 at 8:07 AM MDT.

Messages

Occasional chances of showers (mainly light) today through Sunday night. Scattered thunderstorms possible in southeast Montana Sunday.

Snow showers in the mountains above 10000 feet Sunday and Sunday night; minimal to no accumulation.

Update

Cold front has pushed through the entire cwa and temperatures/winds have responded accordingly, with temperatures in the mid 40s to mid 50s and easterly surface winds extended all the way to Livingston (a few hours earlier than previously thought). Weak shortwave is producing light showers mainly from Melville to Judith Gap as of 14z, but there are also showers near Livingston and Emigrant. Shower potential, though it should remain isolated to scattered, will extend eastward across the plains this afternoon and evening. Cloud cover is steadily increasing and looking upstream there is low stratus from Cut Bank to Great Falls. As low level cool advection continues and upslope winds deepen, would be shocked if low clouds and perhaps upslope fog don't become issues for us by this evening. All told, today will be 15-25F cooler than Thursday with highs in the 60s to lower 70s. Have dropped forecast highs a bit and adjusted winds/chance of rain per current mesoanalysis. JKL

This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Billings discussion at /o/BYZ/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.

Data from the National Weather Service. Translated by Claude. About · For developers & agents · Subscribe: RSS feed for this office · Source on GitHub