Wildfire smoke muddies air quality in Minnesota

CATHY WURZER: More wildfire smoke is drifting south from Canada. That's creating hazy skies, again, across much of Minnesota, with an air quality alert to go with it. To get the latest on the air we're breathing and the weather, NPR Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner is here with us right now. Hey, Paul. How are you?

PAUL HUTTNER: Hey, I'm good, Cathy, just would love to talk about this beautiful weather if it weren't for all the smoke, right?

CATHY WURZER: Well, there's that, yeah. I just heard from a friend who says it does smell like a bonfire out there. So this is another air quality alert-- two, actually, right?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and they just expanded this now within the last half hour. It includes all of Minnesota now and about the western half of Wisconsin all under an air quality alert, the Minnesota alert until 6:00 AM tomorrow, the Wisconsin one until noon tomorrow. Here's the deal, Cathy.

There's basically a smoke front that is just moving through the Twin Cities right now. It is thick. We've got visibilities a mile or less to the north and west of the Twin Cities. And I'm looking at air quality currently right now, and it's still good, southeast of the Twin Cities good to moderate.

But then you get up into the Twin Cities, so 39 in Stanton is a good reading, southeast Dakota County. You get into Minneapolis, it's 121 for the air quality index, 150 you go up to Blaine, and then 174 at St. Cloud. That's in the thick plume of smoke. That's in the unhealthy, the red range.

And that whole area of smoke covers Central Minnesota now, from Moorhead, Brainerd over to Duluth, Bemidji, and it's moving southeast right into the Twin Cities. So you can see the smoke out there now. It's going to get thicker as we go through the afternoon and evening hours.

Now, the forecast models for this smoke plume-- and this is smoke from the Canadian wildfires up in Alberta, Saskatchewan. That's come south into Minnesota. The forecast is this will be thick through tomorrow morning.

It may ease a little bit, especially Northeast Minnesota tomorrow-- it's already better in parts of Northeast Minnesota today-- and then hopefully improve as high pressure builds over the Great Lakes with an easterly wind on Friday. So this is just the next wave, Cathy, in this summer of smoke that we appear to be setting up for here in Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Oh. Aye yai.

PAUL HUTTNER: I know.

CATHY WURZER: I know. I feel, though, that this might be a summer where we're just going to see this going on and going on because of the really dry conditions out there.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and it's interesting because this just happened yesterday-- early this week, the Fuels and Fire Advisory now from the National Interagency Forest Center-- the Eastern area is based in Milwaukee, and they issued this now, including Eastern Minnesota, Northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

They're saying fuels are at record dry levels. You and I have been talking about this flash drought, how we quickly deepen into drought. Well, they're saying 3 to 4 inch rainfall deficits, rapid drying of vegetation, it's sapping moisture from the trees, from the marsh grasses, from the grasses. And they're at record dryness levels.

There's this thing called the Buildup Index with how much are fuels building up. It's really high across Eastern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So there is not only the threat for smoke now from Canadian wildfires and, as we know, as you've been mentioning, the Boundary Waters wildfire, there is a threat for large fires in Minnesota now and Wisconsin and Michigan.

So this has been far away for a while. Well, guess what, it's here because this fire threat for Minnesota has increased rapidly because of this flash drought that we're moving into. So I'm really concerned about the potential for these fires growing in Minnesota for the rest of this month.

CATHY WURZER: And it looks as though temperatures are going to be in the 80s here, upper 80s or so. That's probably not helping the situation.

PAUL HUTTNER: It's not. And the real kicker is we need rain. And I looked at the forecast models again today. I'm looking every day trying to find rain. Less than a quarter of an inch is what the QPF, the Quantitative Precipitation Forecast, is for Eastern Minnesota for the next 10 days, Cathy, maybe an inch or two in Western Minnesota. We have a chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms, especially Saturday, especially Southwest Minnesota, maybe into Sunday.

But we need widespread consistent rain, and I don't see that happening right now. Now, the pattern can change in a day, as we know on the forecast models, but it doesn't look great, Cathy. And I just wish I had better news to talk about, but I'm super concerned about this drought deepening, and the fire danger, and, of course, for farmers in Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Exactly. Now, I also hear that you've been following reports of some strange global temperature spikes.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yes, so this is a bit of uncharted waters. And climate scientists are looking at this. They're a little bit stunned and kind of searching for answers. Record warm sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic off the charts and in the world's oceans overall and global 2-meter temperatures spiking to record warm levels for this time of year too.

Now, there are a few theories floating around as to why this is happening, some of it having to do with changes in ocean currents and the Atlantic, some of it was Saharan dust or the lack of it coming off of Africa which cools the North Atlantic, and even sulfate aerosols from shipping that are down, and they normally reflect sunlight and cool it.

So the big picture, though, may be the switch from La Niña to El Niño that we've been talking about. And we'll have to see how this pans out. We could be headed for a Super El Niño, Cathy, very warm, extremely warm waters in the tropical Pacific this year. And that might push us to one of the hottest years on record globally again. So climate scientists watching this and super concerned and still searching for a few answers.

CATHY WURZER: And if you get really warm ocean temperatures, what does that cause-- what does that do for, say, hurricanes and other storms?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it's a mixed bag. I mean, it can make hurricanes stronger. But the El Niño tends to produce wind shear in the tropical Atlantic. So that can minimize the number of hurricanes. But still, as you know, you only need one good hurricane to do a lot of damage. And if they hit that warm water, they can rapidly intensify before they come ashore.

CATHY WURZER: And before you go, what's on Climate Cast this week?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, big concerns about major insurance companies pulling out of California now because of wildfires and Florida because of hurricanes. I'll talk to Andrew Freedman from Axios about what's happening there as we see these increased catastrophic losses, Cathy. The numbers for the insurance industry are not great. And homeowners are facing fewer choices for how to get your home insured.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Paul Huttner, thank you.

PAUL HUTTNER: Thank you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: That's our chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. You can listen to him this afternoon on All Things Considered.