Air quality conditions remain poor in northern Minnesota

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency expects continued heavy wildfire smoke in northern and central Minnesota through Friday morning.

Air quality indexes in those areas are forecast to be in the unhealthy or very unhealthy range, with heat exacerbating the impacts.

The agency says heavy smoke will continue to create hazardous air quality conditions in northeast Minnesota over the next several days as wildfires in and near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness continue to burn.

Portions of far northern Minnesota received rainfall Friday morning, "smack dab over the areas that needed it the most," MPR News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard said on Morning Edition.

Sundgaard said the rain likely won't put out those fires, but it will help to contain them and possibly dampen some of the smoke.

"This is basically the best case scenario for what could have happened with this early morning rainfall," he said.

Sundgaard noted that state climatologist Kenneth Blumenfeld said the poor air quality resulting from the fires is likely the worst Minnesota has seen in 50 years.

"We only have been keeping track of air quality records consistently since 2010, but they went through and looked at visibility, and we can look in the observations when smoke was reported, and there just really isn't anything like this event over the last 50 years," Sundgaard said.

He noted that air quality in the Twin Cities has improved to moderate levels, having gotten better dramatically overnight.

"We'll probably see a little smoke move back in tomorrow, but nothing like what we just had, at least in the Twin Cities," he said.

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