Several more bouts of smoky skies ahead the next few weeks?
Dozens of Canadian wildfires, and some in Minnesota, are producing thick smoke plumes
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It looks like the smoky part of summer is here.
More than 3,000 wildfires have burned across Canada so far this year. Currently, more than a hundred blazes are uncontrolled.
The massive Kenora 51 fire is burning vigorously north of Minnesota just east of Lake Winnipeg. It’s estimated at 28,454 hectares (70,311 acres) and is currently listed as out of control.
Check out the explosive smoke plumes late Monday afternoon in the heat of the day with the increasing southerly wind flow. You can see the thick smoke plumes clearly exploding from the fire sources in the upper left-hand side of this GOES-16 visible satellite loop.
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Overall smoke in Minnesota is gradually thinning out compared to Sunday. But Monday’s visible loop over Minnesota shows areas of smoke, especially in northern and central Minnesota.
At ground level, you can see how the Twin Cities air quality index peaked Sunday with a high of 91 ppm.
Monday’s AQI readings improved in the Twin Cities, but remain un unhealthy levels for sensitive groups in parts of northwest Minnesota.
Southerly winds into Wednesday should continue to gradually nudge the thickest smoke further northward near ground level. Wednesday’s expected rain will also likely wash the smoke out of the air across southern Minnesota.
But as a front moves through Thursday northerly wind flow may push smoke back into Minnesota.
It looks likely that Minnesota is going to be dealing with varying levels of smoke aloft and at ground level for the next several weeks until the fires subside in Canada.
That means vivid sunrises and sunsets in the sky, and more potential air quality alerts here on the ground.
Smoke episodes have doubled in Minnesota skies
Fire has always been a part of forest ecology. But data is clear that the number and intensity of wildfires in North America are increasing due to climate change, and the change to a hotter direr climate overall.
According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s staff meteorologists, we’ve had 26 air-quality alerts since 2015, and 14 of those were due to wildfire smoke. That’s double the number of smoke-related alerts the MPCA called in the previous seven years.
Stay tuned.