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Repeat Canadian smoke clouds possible

An ag meteorologist says smoke from Canadian wildfires has the potential to repeat through the fall.

Michigan’s state climatologist Jeff Andresen tells Brownfield the current flow of the jet stream from east to west into the Midwest has been unusual and brought with it some of the worst air quality seen across the globe.

“Those fires themselves reflect long-term dryness in those areas of Canada,” he says.  “That’s why the landscape is burnable. The other sobering thing is, we’re really not even halfway through the major fire season in that part of the world, so without a lot of rainfall or wetter conditions, we could be looking at more smoke and problems.”

Andresen says it’s unlikely crops will be majorly impacted, but he says past smoke events have been found to reduce solar radiation levels.

“They can make do with a with a little bit lower value, so the impact probably is not very significant really, maybe even measurable at this point in time, unless it were to be something that would be very persistent,” he explains.

He says the haze should dissipate by the weekend.  The current short and medium-range forecasts also include more chances for rain across the Great Lakes with projections calling for a warmer and wetter than normal outlook.