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Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News
Paul Huttner

Smoky skies now, all eyes on Irma next week

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Whiter shade of pale

Is it just me, or have we seen way too many smoky sky days this summer? It's getting hard to see the blue in our white-tinted Minnesota skies lately.

91 smoke
Smoke and clouds dim the sun over Minnesota Friday. Image: Paul Huttner/MPR News

Active fire season

Our smudgy sky is thanks to wildfires in the western USA & Canada. So far Canada has recorded 4,870 wildfires in 2017. It seems we've been downwind more than usual this summer.

9 1 fires
Environment Canada

Widespread smoke plume

We're sharing our smoky pall with much of North America.

Mix down

The frontal system pushing through western Minnesota today has produced the right meteorological conditions to mix smoke down to ground level. The air quality alert continues into Saturday morning.

Spotty showers into early Saturday

Scattered showers ride the front across Minnesota overnight into Saturday morning. I think we'll observe more sun by Saturday afternoon. Sunday looks warm, and another front brings a few showers to the northern half of Minnesota by Labor Day. Here's NOAA GFS.

9 1 gfs
NOAA via tropical tidbits.

July flashback Sunday

The best day to hit the beach or lake one more time? Sunday. Highs push the  80s in much of Minnesota with some humidity as dew points climb.

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NOAA

Note the cooling trend by Labor Day.

9 1 MaxT4_uppermissvly (1)
NOAA

September reality check next week

The strongest cold front so far this season blows in next week. Back to school. Right on schedule. Let's get those kids focused.

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NOAA via Weather Bell

Summer not done

The longer range upper air maps still suggest another warm run centering on next weekend. A lazy high pressure ridge languishes near the Upper Midwest next weekend.

9 1 500
NOAA

The 8-14 day temperature trend leans warmer than average from Minnesota west.

9 1 814temp.new (1)
NOAA

Highs in the upper 70s and 80s still look like a reasonable forecast next weekend.

9 1 16
NOAA via Meteostar

Watching Irma

All the weather dominoes appear to be in place for Hurricane Irma to reach impressive Category 4 or 5 intensity in the next week.

#

The big question is still the eventual forecast track. Today's 12Z European model (ECMWF) still leans toward the left side of forecast guidance. That's not what we wanted to see. Even though the Euro is the best weather forecast model on planet earth overall, keep in mind this is just one model solution. This will likely change.

It's still along way out and too early to get specific about a possible U.S. landfall. The range of spaghettios is wide for Irma.

#

By early next week we should have much higher confidence on where Irma is headed.

Stay tuned.