Tips For Weathering Wildfire Smoke

The smoke map from Sunday showed widespread smoke continuing across Canada and spilling into much of the Central US including the Upper Midwest. This will make for somewhat cloudy/hazy skies and poor air quality for some into the week ahead.

The smoke analysis by midday Monday shows widespread smoke overhead across the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Region thanks to wildfires burning in Canada. This will make skies smoky and hazy through much of the day.

Our last full week of May looks somewhat tame across the Midwest through the first part of the week with mild and smokey sunshine. There could be a few stray t-showers here and there, but there will be a better chance of more widespread rain and thunder as we approach the upcoming weekend.

The precipitation outlook into the upcoming week doesn’t appear to be all that impressive with some locations seeing 0.25″ to 0.50″ tallies in the western part of the state. The heavier amounts of up to 0.75″ will be found closer to northwestern. Stay tuned…

The weather outlook for the Twin Cities on Monday, May 22nd shows another sunny and mild day with highs warming into the upper 70s to near 80F for the Twin Cities. Thanks to Canadian wildfires, skies will be fairly smoky/hazy with some minor air quality concerns across parts of the state

Temps on Monday will be nearly +5F to +15F above average across the region with highs warming into the 70s and lower 80s, which is more like mid-June standards. Skies will remain smoky and hazy for much of the day as well.

The hourly temps through the day Monday show temps starting in the mid to upper 50s in the morning and warming to near 80F by the afternoon. Skies will generally be sunny, but smoke from Canadian wildfires will keep skies smoky and hazy throughout the day. Southerly winds will be a bit breezy with some 15mph at times.

Temperatures will be very mild as we start out the week with readings warming to near 80F, which will be nearly +10F above average for late May. We’ll see a slight cooldown midweek with readings back to near normal in the low/mid 70s, which will still be quite enjoyable. A gradual warming trend takes us back to near 80F later this week and the weekend ahead, will be nearly +10F above average.

The extended weather outlook for the Twin Cities looks sunny and mild through to start off the week with temps approaching 80F. There could be a few t-showers here and there this week, but there will be a better chance of storms late week and into the weekend ahead as a slower-moving storm system slides into the Midwest.

The NBM extended temperature outlook for Minneapolis keeps fairly mild readings in place through midweek. A weak cool front will drop temps into the lower 70s midweek, but a gradual warming trend gets us back to the 80F mark by the last weekend of the month.

A fairly large bubble of high pressure will settle in across the Great Lakes late this week, which will keep skies generally quiet. On the western edge of this high pressure system, winds will turn more southerly and warm things up in the Midwest late week/weekend ahead.

According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, the 8 to 14-day temperature outlook shows warmer-than-average temperatures settling in across the northern tier of the nation and especially across the Midwest and the Great Lakes. Cooler than average temps will be in place across parts of the Southwestern US.

According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, the 8 to 14 Day precipitation outlook shows more active weather possible across The Plains and the Southern US.

In a tornado you head to the basement. Lightning? Any building or vehicle offers protection. Flash flooding? Get to higher ground; don’t drive through flooded roads. But what about wildfire smoke?

Last weekend was magical with a reprieve from Canadian wildfire smoke that triggered low visibility, sore throats and a few coughing attacks last week.

Experts say the risk is greatest for people with asthma and other respiratory challenges, and children, who spend more time outside playing. Check with your doctor. When smoke is thick pause outdoor exercise, consider an air purifier, keep tabs on air quality updates, and N95 masks leftover from the pandemic do offer some protection.

I expect more wildfire smoke today and Tuesday with a shot at 80F both days. Winds aloft blow from the southwest later this week, which may keep most of the smoke north/west of Minnesota.

No significant rain is likely until a few Memorial Day Weekend T-storms. Lake-worthy with no steady rain. Steady smoke? We’ll see.

MONDAY: Warm, smoky sunshine. Winds: S 8-13. High: 80.

MONDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy & quiet. Winds: SE 10. Low: 61.

TUESDAY: Murky sunshine, more smoke. Winds: SW 8-13. High: 78.

WEDNESDAY: Windy. More clouds, showers up north. Winds: E 10-20. Wake-up: 56. High 70.

THURSDAY: More sunshine. Winds: SE 10-20. Wake-up: 50. High 72.

FRIDAY: Plenty of lukewarm sunshine. Winds: SE 8-13. Wake-up: 51. High 76.

SATURDAY: Some sun, few storms NW of MSP. Winds: S 10-20. Wake-up: 55. High: 80.

SUNDAY: Humid, showers and T-storms nearby. Winds: SE 8-13. Wake-up: 58. High: 78.

May 22nd

2011: A strong EF-1 tornado with wind speeds up to 110 mph strikes north Minneapolis, causing extensive tree and structural damage. The tornado touched down in St. Louis Park and moved through north Minneapolis, lasting 14.25 miles before dissipating in Blaine after causing minor damage to the Anoka County Airport. The tornado reached a peak width of 1/2 mile.

2001: Record cold high temperatures are set in over 30 cities in Minnesota, including a chilly 47 in the Twin Cities and 39 at Grand Rapids and Pine River. Half of an inch of snow falls at International Falls.

1925: Temperatures take a nosedive from 100 to 32 degrees in 36 hours at New Ulm and Tracy.

May 22nd

Average High: 71F (Record: 99F set in 1925

Average Low: 52F (Record: 32F set in 1917)

Record Rainfall: 1.20″ set in 1936

Record Snowfall: NONE

May 22nd

Sunrise: 5:36am

Sunset: 8:42pm

Hours of Daylight: ~15 hours & 05 minutes

Daylight GAINED since yesterday: +1 Minutes & 58 Seconds

Daylight GAINED since Winter Solstice (December 21st): ~ 6 hour & 19 minutes

3.6 Days Since New Moon

Temperatures on Wednesday will be very mild across much of the western half of the nation and especially the Northwest, where readings will be nearly +15F to +20F above average. Record warmth will build in later this week across the Pacific Northwest.

The weather outlook on Wednesday will be unsettled across the Southern US and also throughout the high elevations of the Rockies and across the Plains.

The weather outlook through Tuesday shows slightly more unsettled weather developing across the Intermountain-West with areas of rain and thunder. This system will slowly move east through the week with increasing rain and thunder chance across the Central US later this week

According to NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center, the extended precipitation outlook shows heavier precipitation across parts of the Central Plains and also the Southeastern US. A few locations could see 1″ to 3″ of rain over the next several days.

“Scientists have predicted that droughts and floods will become more frequent and severe as our planet warms and climate changes, but detecting this on regional and continental scales has proven difficult. Now a new NASA-led study confirms that major droughts and pluvials – periods of excessive precipitation and water storage on land – have indeed been occurring more often. In the study published March 13, 2023, in the journal Nature Water, two NASA scientists examined 20 years of data from the NASA/German GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites to identify extreme wet and dry events. Floods and droughts account for more than 20% of the economic losses caused by extreme weather events in the U.S. each year. The economic impacts are similar around the world, though the human toll tends to be most devastating in poor neighborhoods and developing nations. The scientists also found that the worldwide intensity of these extreme wet and dry events – a metric that combines extent, duration, and severity – is closely linked to global warming.”

See more from NASA HERE:

“This week, the Great Lakes was named a global “Hope Spot,” joining the Galapagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef and the Bering Sea — just to drop a few names — as a place identified as critical to the health of the ocean. And if one of those things seems not like the others, the Great Lakes is indeed the first and, to date, only freshwater site of the 152 Hope Spots. What exactly is a Hope Spot? The designation was created by Mission Blue, an organization founded by legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle, former chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and current explorer-in-residence with National Geographic. (We don’t use legendary lightly. Time magazine named Earle its first Hero for the Planet in 1998.) Essentially the term Hope Spot is a user-friendly label for places Mission Blue is throwing its considerable weight behind in a push to create more marine protected areas — think national parks, only in the ocean.”

See more from WTTW HERE:

“New York City is sinking in part due to the extraordinary weight of its vertiginous buildings, worsening the flooding threat posed to the metropolis from the rising seas, new research has found. The Big Apple may be the city that never sleeps but it is a city that certainly sinks, subsiding by approximately 1-2mm each year on average, with some areas of New York City plunging at double this rate, according to researchers.This sinking is exacerbating the impact of sea level rise which is accelerating at around twice the global average as the world’s glaciers melt away and seawater expands due to global heating. The water that flanks New York City has risen by about 9in, or 22cm, since 1950 and major flooding events from storms could be up to four times more frequent than now by the end of the century due to the combination of sea level rise and hurricanes strengthened by climate change.”

See more from The Guardian HERE: