Air quality alerts spread across Minnesota as fires rage, sending smoke south

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Northern Minnesota will cool off into the 80s Wednesday, but temperatures in the 90s continue for central and southern Minnesota through Saturday. Rain chances will be few and far between. 

Extreme heat warnings and heat advisories persist for central Minnesota, including the Twin Cities. Air quality alerts continue for much of Minnesota Wednesday due to wildfire smoke. 

Check the latest air quality conditions, alerts and forecasts here: 

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

The smoke is so thick and abundant it’s now reached the northeast of the U.S. and is wrapping around, clockwise, over Washington, D.C., and back to Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. Air flows clockwise around large high pressure areas and heat domes such as this. There is some bright white, which is cloud cover, but the dirty gray is all smoke. This image is from Tuesday evening: 

Afternoon highs will be in the 90s for most of central and southern Minnesota once again Wednesday afternoon with lots of sunshine. Winds will be fairly light, mostly under 10 mph. 

The heat index Wednesday afternoon will again range from 95 to 100 degrees in central and southern Minnesota thanks to dew points in the 60s. 

It’s more of the same for those of us in central and southern Minnesota through Friday or Saturday. The 90s don’t look to break for the Twin Cities until Sunday or maybe even Monday.

We’ll start to see some isolated to spotty shower or thunderstorm chances over the next few days in northern Minnesota, but if you’re hoping for a widespread soaking on the fires, that looks unlikely.

Southern Minnesota may see the chance of some spotty thunder by the second half of the weekend or early next week as the cool front advances, but those chances are also sparse. 

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Sven Sundgaard

Author

Northern Minnesota will cool off into the 80s Wednesday, but temperatures in the 90s continue for central and southern Minnesota through Saturday. Rain chances will be few and far between. 


Cooling off north, but heat continues central and south

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