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Next Round Of Smoke Saturday - Air Quality Alert Extended
While we are still dealing with lingering smoke from the batch that moved south across Minnesota Thursday, another batch will move south out of Canada with a cold front on Saturday. The loop above, which runs from 7 PM Friday Night through 7 AM Sunday morning, shows that new batch reaching the Twin Cities during the afternoon hours on Saturday. Smoke looks to stick around across the region through the rest of the weekend and into early next week.
Due to the quite poor air quality this wildfire smoke is - and will - create the next several days, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has extended the Air Quality Alert that was in place through 3 PM on Tuesday (yes, TUESDAY) and now includes the entire state.
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Saturday Weather Outlook
So we will be watching another day of smoke and haze in the atmosphere for the Twin Cities. While not shown above, the frontal boundary dropping south bringing that next batch of smoke could also help spark a few scattered showers or storms in the midday and evening timeframes. Morning temperatures will be in the 60s with highs climbing to the mid-80s.
Smoky, hazy skies continue across much of the state Saturday. The best chance of seeing showers or storms in the above mentioned timeframes for the Twin Cities would be across east-central and southeastern Minnesota. Highs will be in the 70s and 80s - right around average.
A few of the storms across southeastern Minnesota late Saturday could be on the strong side with damaging winds and large hail as the primary threats.
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80s Into Early Next Week
Our stretch of "cooler" weather continues into at least the middle of next week, with highs in the 80s expected. The coolest day will be behind the front on Sunday with highs only reaching 80F.
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Drought Update
Drought once again worsened for the most part across the state this past week, with the latest drought monitor showing 22.06% of Minnesota in Extreme drought, up from 18.50% the previous week. The only sliver of hope was the amount of Minnesota in at least moderate drought decreased very slightly as an area south of Duluth is now only "abnormally dry."
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Smoky Air Quality Alerts Remain In Effect
By Paul Douglas
I went to sleep in Minnesota and woke up in Montana. Weird. I'm waiting patiently for my smoke detectors to go off, wondering if I should be investing in an air filtration system.
The 7-Day Outlook is vaguely apocalyptic, with Air Quality Alerts extended through Tuesday. Normally refreshing cool fronts now bring choking smoke south of the border.
Predicting smoke depends on prevailing winds, whether fires upwind can be brought under control, and lightning igniting new fires - factors beyond the capacity of weather models.
Blue sky may be tainted by smoke into Monday as winds blow from the north. By midweek winds turn around to the south and southwest and air quality should, on paper, begin to improve.
The catch: those stuffy winds will blow 90s back into Minnesota by next weekend. The metro area has enjoyed 22 days of 90s since June 1. At the rate we're going we could easily wind up with 30+ days of 90-degree fun.
In the meantime I'm looking for tools to better predict smoke. Good grief.
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Paul's Extended Twin Cities Forecast
SATURDAY: Dim sun, more smoke. Wake up 63. High 82. Chance of precipitation 20%. Wind NW 10-20 mph.
SUNDAY: Some sun, poor air quality. Wake up 62. High 79. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind N 10-15 mph.
MONDAY: LA with lakes. Smoky and smoggy. Wake up 61. High 80. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind NW 8-13 mph.
TUESDAY: More sun, less smoke. Wake up 64. High 85. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind W 7-12 mph.
WEDNESDAY: Hazy sunshine, warming up. Wake up 67. High 87. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind SW 5-10 mph.
THURSDAY: Some sun, isolated T-storm. Wake up 69. High 88. Chance of precipitation 30%. Wind SW 10-15 mph.
FRIDAY: Hazy sunshine. Dog Days return. Wake up 70. High 89. Chance of precipitation 20%. Wind S 5-10 mph.
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Minneapolis Weather Almanac And Sun Data
July 31st
*Length Of Day: 14 hours, 42 minutes and 37 seconds
*Daylight LOST Since Yesterday: 2 minute and 21 seconds
*When Do We Drop Below 14.5 Hours Of Daylight? August 6th (14 hours, 27 minutes, and 43 seconds)
*When Is The Sunrise At/After 6 AM?: August 2nd (6:00 AM)
*When Is The Sunset At/Before 8:30 PM?: August 7th (8:30 PM)
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This Day in Weather History
July 31st
1961: Very heavy rain falls at Albert Lea, where 6.7 inches is recorded in 24 hours.
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National Weather Forecast
We'll be tracking numerous areas of showers and storms as we go through Saturday, with the driest portions of the nation along the West Coast, in the Northern Plains, around the Ark-La-Tex, and into the Northeast. Monsoonal showers and storms could produce heavy rain in portions of the western United States.
The heaviest rain through Sunday will fall across portions of the Central Plains, where storms could produce at least 3" of rain in some locations. We will also see some heavy rain across the Four Corners region due to monsoonal moisture, with some storms capable of at least 1" per hour rainfall rates.
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Toyota Led on Clean Cars. Now Critics Say It Works to Delay Them.
More from the New York Times: "But in recent months, Toyota, one of the world's largest automakers, has quietly become the industry's strongest voice opposing an all-out transition to electric vehicles — which proponents say is critical to fighting climate change. Last month, Chris Reynolds, a senior executive who oversees government affairs for the company, traveled to Washington for closed-door meetings with congressional staff members and outlined Toyota's opposition to an aggressive transition to all-electric cars. He argued that gas-electric hybrids like the Prius and hydrogen-powered cars should play a bigger role, according to four people familiar with the talks. Behind that position is a business quandary: Even as other automakers have embraced electric cars, Toyota bet its future on the development of hydrogen fuel cells — a costlier technology that has fallen far behind electric batteries — with greater use of hybrids in the near term. That means a rapid shift from gasoline to electric on the roads could be devastating for the company's market share and bottom line."
The road to an electric vehicle future is paved with lithium
More from Marketplace Tech: "Tesla beat earnings expectations Tuesday, reporting record profits of more than a billion dollars last quarter. The electric vehicle market, while still small, has grown rapidly this year. Of course, a global shortage of microchips could slow things down. In the long term, there's also the issue of availability of lithium. It's a soft, silvery metal that's the key component in electric car batteries. Chris Berry, a strategic metals consultant and president of House Mountain Partners, says demand for lithium is expected to triple in the next five years, which is why some automakers, like GM, have taken the unusual step of making deals with lithium mines directly."
The amount of Greenland ice that melted on Tuesday could cover Florida in 2 inches of water
More from CNN: "Greenland is experiencing its most significant melting event of the year as temperatures in the Arctic surge. The amount of ice that melted on Tuesday alone would be enough to cover the entire state of Florida in two inches of water. It's the third instance of extreme melting in the past decade, during which time the melting has stretched farther inland than the entire satellite era, which began in the 1970s. Greenland lost more than 8.5 billion tons of surface mass on Tuesday, and 18.4 billion tons since Sunday, according to the Denmark Meteorological Institute. While this week's total ice loss is not as extreme as a similar event in 2019 — a record melt year — the area of the ice sheet that's melting is larger."
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Thanks for checking in and have a great day! Don't forget to follow me on Twitter (@dkayserwx) and like me on Facebook (Meteorologist D.J. Kayser).
- D.J. Kayser