Canadian wildfire smoke is expected to trigger an air quality alert for Northwest Minnesota over the next two days.
Ryan Lueck with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says the majority of the smoke will be billowing in from active fires in Saskatchewan but mixed in with active fires on the West Coast. He says the alert should be over by Wednesday afternoon.
"Right now, it looks like we might get close to that level across northwestern Minnesota as that smoke pushes in from the west and from the north again this evening into tomorrow morning," Lueck explained. "But it's not a slam dunk. There could be a situation where you have a few hours worth of those kind of Orange AQI category levels."
An Orange Air Quality Index means there is unhealthy for sensitive groups.
"The entire state is likely to see the smoke above our heads through the next 48 hours," Lueck says. "But mainly the concern for impact the air quality will be across northwestern Minnesota. And then after that, it doesn't seem like there's too much of a concern."
You will notice a smoky haze has spread over Minnesota but most of the smoke remains aloft, and air quality in most of the state should be Green (Good).
High temperatures generally in the low to mid 80s are above normal for this time of year, and will only gradually increase through the end of the week. However, with decreasing intensity in solar radiation as the days get shorter, that ground-level ozone formation is becoming less and less likely.
There is a chance that the summer like temperatures may allow ozone to reach Yellow on Wednesday and Thursday in more of the state and that includes counties just on the northern side of the Twin Cities metro area.
