What do you get when you combine raging wildfires in Canada with northern winds and high pressure systems?
You get what we've seen in Wisconsin the last seven days, and what we will continue to see today, Aug. 5. Though, the air shouldn't be as bad today.
As of 6:30 a.m., Milwaukee's Air Quality Index is 111, which is safer than Aug. 4. But the air is still unhealthy for sensitive groups: including children, older adults and people with lung or heart conditions like asthma, whom the National Weather Service recommends stays inside.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources's air quality alert — which is scheduled to end at noon Aug. 5 — is still between the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups and Unhealthy levels, depending on where in the state you live. The worst conditions are expected across northeastern Wisconsin today, while lighter impacts are more likely for southwestern counties.
National Weather Service Milwaukee-Sullivan meteorologist Denny VanCleve said he was optimistic that the air quality would continue to improve over the next 24 hours as wind directions change and the high pressure, which acts almost "like a bubble or a dome" to trap smoke, dissipates.
"Looking at the latest projections, it does look like again, late today into tonight, some of this [smoke] tries to start to shift east and northward as [high pressure] starts to slide off," VanCleve said.
The main reason why the state has not had relief from the smoke since July 31 is because of the high pressure, according to VanCleve.
"Although the fires themselves may have been burning for a while, whether or not we're impacted by the smoke depends on the upper air pattern," VanCleve said. "And if that gets drawn down in here."
VanCleve said he would not be surprised if the air quality alert gets extended another day, at least in some areas of Wisconsin if not statewide.
"Some of the models were showing a bit more (smoke) concentration in the eastern half of the state," VanCleve said.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Despite Wisconsin air quality improving, alert could be re-extended
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