Clouds and fog continue to plague the Treasure Valley and extending past Mountain Home to the southeast. The temperature in Boise will likely hold in the 30s Thursday with the thick cloud cover and fog. The sun will continue to shine brightly east of Mountain Home to the Magic Valley with many of these locations reaching 50°+!
A Dense Fog Advisory will be in place for the same areas through midday Friday. Temperatures continue to climb 5-15° above normal for most areas outside of the valley.
Winter officially arrives Thursday evening as the winter solstice occurs at 8:27pm MST! While the season starts on a mild note outside of the valley inversion, a strong cold front brings a blast of more seasonable air along with sunshine for the weekend.
The cold front will move across the valley Friday evening accompanied by a burst of rain and some wind. Colder air settles in behind the front before sunrise Saturday. 1or 2" of snow accumulation is possible in the mountains, less than 1" in McCall, and no accumulation for the valley but black ice could form is some areas before the sun comes up on Saturday.
If you are headed to The Great Idaho Potato Bowl at Albertsons Stadium at 1:30pm it will NOT snow and will actually be bright and sunny with a brisk northwest breeze and temperatures in the upper 30s.
Sunshine will be short-lived as another inversion will likely develop by Christmas morning meaning low clouds return each morning with sunshine developing in some areas later in the day.
This time of year it is very difficult to keep sunshine in the valley as the sun is at its lowest angle so daytime heating of the ground is not sufficient enough to warm the air over the valley. This allows moisture to stay trapped in the valley causing low clouds and fog anytime there is not a storm system nearby to stir up the valley air.
Our travel weather for this weekend will be fine westbound with dry conditions on Saturday. There will be some lingering snow showers in the central mountains on Saturday morning but it will be dry into Sunday with valley for returning to some valleys by over the weekend.
