Hot weather to return by the end of the week, bringing potential for storms

CHRIS FARRELL: This is Minnesota Now. I'm Chris Farrell in for Nina Moini. An air quality alert for Northeast Minnesota has been extended. And in the rest of the state, we've had a few days with clearer air. With the latest on our air quality and the chance for some storms is MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. Well, we are talking the other day that there's a set of numbers that I never paid any attention to, and we're all looking at them. Where is the air quality at this point? So looking ahead, can you say anything about, what's the longer term smoke outlook for the summer.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, I can. And it's great, because I'm looking at this current air quality map, too, and it's got colors we haven't seen in a while. Green. That means good air quality. Western half of Minnesota is in the 30s. That's excellent air. And moderate even in the east, so not too bad. Still a little bit of a slightly dirty air up around Duluth and Two Harbors. But that forecast you talk about has some encouraging news.

It's raining in part of the Canadian fire zones, especially the Southern zones in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and that is suppressing some of that smoke. And the winds are also blowing it north, so we have southerly wind flow. Looks like we're going to see better air quality through the rest of this week. There is a chance we'll get some smoke this weekend with a northwest wind, but we'll see how much it is, because the rain has suppressed some of that smoke in Canada.

And the longer term outlook is really going to depend on how much rain they get in those northern wildfire zones. They've had an inch or two in the southern zones. It looks like we could get several inches in that area over the next 10 days to two weeks, so I am cautiously optimistic, Chris, that we might see fewer air quality alerts here as we go forward.

But there's still a lot of smoke up there, so we may get some. And just for perspective, my sources at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency tell me we've had 33 air quality alerts for Minnesota so far this year. That's just eight shy of the record of 41 we had two years ago.

CHRIS FARRELL: OK. This is one of those times I don't want to hit a record. I don't want to reset a record.

PAUL HUTTNER: Exactly.

[LAUGHTER]

CHRIS FARRELL: Let's fall short. So your forecast for the rest of the weekend?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. Summary, it looks like we've had some showers this morning. Not much rain in the Twin Cities in the east, but they got soaked again in western Minnesota this morning, 2 to 3 inches around Chokio, Morris, Moorhead, area down to Alexandria. That's moving out.

We'll see a mix of sun and clouds here this afternoon. Top out around 81 in the Twin Cities. It's in the 70s now. And then 86 tomorrow, 92 on Friday. Steamy with just a slight chance of a thunderstorm tomorrow. Mid to upper 80s this weekend with isolated thunderstorms around. And as we head into next week, it looks like the dog days. It looks steamy. Sirius, the dog star, the ancient Greeks.

CHRIS FARRELL: Steamy? This is not a good word.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, I know, but that's what we get, it looks like, this time, anyway. 80s to around 90 next week. Those dew points will be up, too, Chris, in the 60s to around 70.

CHRIS FARRELL: Paul, I don't know if you were listening, but earlier in the week, we had this wonderful interview with a professor up in Canada about the smoke and the fires up in Canada.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, I did hear that.

CHRIS FARRELL: And his message-- again and again, I thought of you-- was that, look. This is climate change. You can say whatever you want about different ways of fighting fires. This is about climate change. I was curious what your thoughts were.

PAUL HUTTNER: I concur with that. Climate change, from everything I'm reading and the scientists I trust, is by far the leading component of this increase in fires. We've seen a four-fold increase in large fires in the western US and Canada since 1970.

And forest management has some role, but you cannot replicate this fire behavior that we're seeing where once these fires get going-- because there have always been wildfires. But once they get going, they just take off and explode. That's a hotter, drier climate. And climate change, by far, the leading contributor to this increase in wildfire activity that we're seeing here in North America.

CHRIS FARRELL: So that leads to, what are you going to have on Climate Cast this week?

PAUL HUTTNER: We're talking about climate solutions. People want to know, what can I do? What are people doing around the world? And Alan Weisman wrote a book called Hope Dies Last talking about creative climate solutions that people are doing all around the world, so we'll expand on that conversation on Climate Cast tomorrow during All Things Considered.

CHRIS FARRELL: Well, can you give us just a brief preview? What's one thing we could do?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. Well, it's interesting, because a lot of people at the local level with doing solar on their own home or even microgrids that we're seeing in some areas-- folks are kind of taking that from the large scale into their own hands, so he details some of that going on.

And of course, here's one thing I do, Chris. I'm a wind source customer for Xcel Energy. You can simply call your utility and say, hey, I want to get my power from wind or solar program. And that's a click of a mouse or a phone call, and they can sign you up to support that kind of power generation.

CHRIS FARRELL: See, I always learn something from you, Paul. Thanks a lot.

PAUL HUTTNER: Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it.

CHRIS FARRELL: That was Paul Huttner, MPR's chief meteorologist.