Forest fires have been ongoing for much of the summer and smoke from those fires have been impacting many of us in the Panhandle and throughout Nebraska. The fires giving us all this smoke are mainly in Canada and parts of the northwest US. Most of the fires in Canada are in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but there are still quite a few in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. All said, there are over 13 million acres on fire in Canada. There have even been some fires in Utah and Arizona that have been impacting us. There is a lot of real estate between those fires and us, so we’re not the only ones seeing all this smoke.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a report on air quality and the categories include the following: Good, Moderate, Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, Unhealthy, Very Unhealthy and Hazardous. The air quality for Nebraska has been ranging from Good to Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, with that last one being seen quite often.
As long as the fires are ongoing, they will be putting more and more smoke into the atmosphere. The air currents within our atmosphere do not go in a straight line, but they do flow snake-like from west to east. Those winds are picking up the smoke and dragging a lot of it over to us in Nebraska.
Weather Last Week
July 28: 55/100/0”
July 29: 65/78/Trace
July 30: 61/78/Trace
July 31: 58/81/0.31”
Aug 1: 55/78/0.14”
Aug 2: 52/84/0”
Aug 3: 49/85/0”
Forecast discussion for the week ahead:
The heat is going to stick around for a few more days with a lot of 90s and possibly some triple digits. It won’t last too much longer, though. A cold front is expected to push through Friday night into Saturday cooling us off and bringing in a chance for showers and thunderstorms.