Montana trades its warm, breezy pattern for a colder, wintrier regime as a Pacific trough and a Canadian cold front meet over the state this weekend. Showers and a few rumbles of thunder pop Saturday, then colder air pours in Saturday night and organizes moisture against the terrain. The result is a widespread mountain snow event that peaks Sunday, with lingering orographic snow showers and early-week chill holding over the high country Monday. Confidence is highest along the northern Divide and Rocky Mountain Front, solid for the southwest and central ranges, and lower for broad valley impacts outside far northwest Montana.

Snow levels begin unhelpfully high on Saturday, then fall rapidly behind the front late Saturday night into Sunday. Expect roughly 9,000 to 12,000 feet during the day Saturday, stepping down to about 2,500 to 5,000 feet from northwest to southeast by daybreak Sunday. That opens a window for valley flakes in northwest Montana where easterly low-level flow squeezes moisture against the Divide. In and around Glacier National Park, upslope enhances snowfall while a quick flash-freeze risk rides the falling temperatures. Elsewhere, lower elevations trend wet and blustery until the colder air catches up, with accumulating snow favored from the foothills upward.

Totals favor the windward mountains with the northern Divide leading the way. Along the Continental Divide from Glacier through the Bob Marshall, a long, orographic-assisted hit can stack 12 inches or more on the upper peaks, with localized 18 to 24 inches where west flow aloft overlaps easterly surface winds. Valleys in far northwest Montana have a credible shot at 1 to 4 inches late Sunday night into Monday morning. Southwest and central Montana join the party with 4 to 12 inches near and above pass level in the Gallatin, Madison, Centennial, Little Belt, and Highwood ranges, while the Crazies can push toward 8 to 14 inches and the Absaroka/Beartooth toward 5 to 10 inches on favored slopes.

Timing runs clean from a showery Saturday into a colder, deeper Sunday, then a taper Monday. Saturday brings scattered showers and a few thunderstorms, then snow expands and lowers overnight as the Canadian front arrives. Sunday is the core snow day for the mountains and the best chance for a photogenic valley coating in the northwest. Monday taps the brakes to mountain snow showers with cold air lingering, then a cool and somewhat unsettled pattern hangs on into early next week. For turns, Sunday rides deepest, while Monday offers colder, cleaner snow on the upper mountain after the heaviest bands fade.

Late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel could barely get the words out of his mouth when he had to say: “I agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

It was his second time this month, he noted, and added “I need something to wash out my mouth.”  But in truth, the issue at hand, which is access to health care, is no laughing matter.

Greene’s latest defection from the MAGA cult of loyalty for which she has been a leading figure popped up in an exclusive interview with CNN in which she didn’t beat around the bush concerning the effect of the House-passed budget bill that, due to not reauthorizing Affordable Care Act subsidies, has caused the shutdown of the federal government.  

“Everybody is just getting destroyed” Greene told reporters.  “This cliff is coming for millions and millions of Americans where their health insurance premiums are about to skyrocket. Republicans, you have no solutions. You haven’t come up with a new plan in place, and we’re not even talking about it, and it is hurting so many people.”  

Greene’s concerns are at odds with the narrative the GOP is trying to spin on the shutdown — namely that it’s all the fault of Senate Democrats.  Instead, Greene says the healthcare crisis now facing millions of Americans, including her kids and constituents, is a direct threat to Republicans in the polls and voting booths.  

It’s worth noting Greene is also one of four Republican House members who signed the discharge petition to force the release of the Epstein files, telling The Hill:  “I think when it comes to women being raped, especially when they were 14 years old, that’s pretty black and white.”  Moreover, she said Speaker Johnson’s attempts to keep the House shut down was “wrong” and they should reconvene to take care of the vast spectrum of Congressional business.  

For his part, Johnson doesn’t want to reconvene the House due to the recent election of a Democrat who, when sworn in, will provide the final signature to force Johnson to deal with the “Epstein bomb”. 

What could this MAGA rebellion by Greene have to do with Montana?  Well, it’s not so dissimilar from a group of nine Republicans who broke with their own leadership over any number of issues.  Chief among them was health care, and support for a bill by fellow Republican Ed Buttrey to lift the pending expiration of Medicaid expansion for low income people that the Senate’s GOP President, Matt Regier, opposed.   

Like Greene, Buttrey noted that healthcare was critical and Republicans had no other plan: “We have 10 years’ worth of data that shows that the program we designed is working and working well. There’s no need to change it, it’s a savings to our budget, it is providing help for people all across the state, it’s helping save our rural health care facilities.  Why would you want to change that or come up with another plan?”

It’s fair to say the GOP tends to “keep its soldiers in line” when it comes to supporting or opposing leadership positions.  Yet, just as Greene defied Johnson on Medicare funding and Trump on the Epstein files, Buttrey and his nine “rebels” defied their own leadership and governor to support Medicaid expansion. 

None of this spells the end of MAGA, of course.  But it shows that when it comes down to the critical issues that affect the citizens of our nation and state, party affiliation is not and should not be the determining factor — especially when it comes to taking care of each other.