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 Missoula, 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 Missoula (MSO) · issued Friday, November 13 at 12:51 AM MST.

Discussion

A trough approaching the west coast will usher in a pattern change this weekend.

The pattern over the next week will remain active with troughs moving through the region.

A closed low off the west coast is filling in and will become a trough by the time it arrives in the northern Rockies Saturday morning. A larger, stronger trough will remain off the US west coast setting up southwesterly flow into the region. The southwest flow will cause warmer temperatures and rising snow levels, and while the trough will also bring some moisture, it won't be much. Over all, it will be a breezy, wet weekend, especially in the mountains as a result.

Some cooler air will make it into the region by Monday, causing snow levels to trend down slowly, but steadily. As the broader area of troughing migrates eastward, it will bring more cold air with it, and snow levels will reach around 4,000ft late Tuesday or early Wednesday. So some light snow showers could reach valley floors in western Montana by mid or late next week.

This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Missoula discussion at /o/MSO/, 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