Ag Weather Forum

It's summer again, so that means many in the Canadian Prairies and U.S. have noticed smoke filling the skies. It happens every year to some degree, but the prevalence of wildfire smoke has been certainly more noticeable the last couple of years where I live in Minnesota. That could be due to a heightened prevalence of social media and a more sensitive forecast and response from governments. But I don't think so. It feels like I have seen more red sunsets and hazy midday conditions during the past few years than I had the rest of my life. I guess I could blame it on recency bias as well -- how recent events tend to outweigh the memories we hold onto.

Whatever the cause, wildfires are raging in Canada and the northwestern U.S. and have been increasing smoke density across a wide area of both Western Canada and the U.S. Just this week, air quality alerts have been noted from California up to British Columbia east through Montana and Nebraska.

Wet springtime conditions led to rapid growth of vegetation. But hot and dry conditions during the last month have caused a lot of that vegetation to go dormant, building fuel and creating the perfect conditions for wildfires. Sparked by humans or lightning, wildfires have been growing throughout the region.

While local officials and first responders do their best to control the more than 70 fires in the Canadian Rockies and dozens more in the northwest U.S. and northern Canadian woodlands, fires are best controlled by Mother Nature.

Large storm systems with vast shields of steady precipitation are the best control device she has and one system that moved in this week did its best to quell some of those fires.

The storm moved into British Columbia on Monday and slowly spread through central British Columbia up through northern Alberta throughout the week. While heavy rain fell, it fell in areas that were not stricken by wildfires. Those occurred farther south in the Canadian Rockies. It did manage to get heavy rain into northern Alberta and Saskatchewan's forested areas, which should help with the control and spread of fires in those areas.

But the system was not all beneficial. While rain did occur in some limited sense farther south in the Canadian Rockies, it also brought with it a few thunderstorms that sparked a few fires. Strong winds swirling around the system helped to stoke the fires, causing them to rapidly burn through several areas. On the edge of Jasper National Park, a scenic and highly visited summer vacation spot, the town of Jasper was nearly wiped away by raging fires. (https://www.bbc.com/… and https://www.cbc.ca/…)

The smoke from these fires will continue to affect the areas downwind across the southern Canadian Prairies into the far northern U.S. with winds remaining out of the west. A general west wind is expected through much of next week as well, which could keep smoke filling into the Prairies and possibly down into the U.S.

A stagnant ridge building across both the U.S. and Canadian Prairies could trap that smoke closer to the surface, which would mean increased health risks for sensitive people.

An upper-level disturbance will move through the Canadian Rockies July 29-30 and produce some showers in the region. Although any rain would be helpful to contain the wildfires, the risk of lightning igniting more fire is also on the table.

To find more international weather conditions and your local forecast from DTN, head over to https://www.dtnpf.com/…

John Baranick can be reached at john.baranick@dtn.com

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