Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

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We’ve enjoyed a nice run of trademark Minnesota blue skies the past few days. But another wave of wildfire smoke is blowing into Minnesota from fires in western Canada. 

Smoke plumes of varying thickness will blow across Minnesota with the thickest smoke waves favoring Thursday. 

The mid to upper-level wind flow across the Upper Midwest is from the northwest. This blows smoke from Canadian fires in Alberta into Minnesota. 

We can expect this pattern to continue to feed waves of mostly elevated smoke into Minnesota through most of this week. The smoke layers will produce a milky white tint to the sky during the day and may produce more vivid reddish sunrises and sunsets this week. 

 us at ground level is that most of the smoke is aloft so far. That means air quality at ground level where we breathe is good to moderate across Minnesota Tuesday.

Some smoke may reach ground level as the week moves on, so Minnesota Pollution Control Agency meteorologists are monitoring sensors to see if additional air quality alerts may be needed this week. 

Here’s Tuesday’s latest forecast discussion from MPCA: 

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

Smoke plumes aloft are moving into Minnesota once again. 

Canadian wildfire smoke returns to Minnesota skies this week

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