00:00Well, northerly winds are bringing that cooler, drier air, but also bringing some Canadian wildfire smoke.
00:04We have that alert through Saturday, but nice, comfortable conditions otherwise into the weekend.
00:18So I picked up more rain overnight in southern Minnesota here, along I-90 and just kind of north of it.
00:24But up to two inches of fresh rain fell for some of those areas in the southeastern part of the state, or far southern Minnesota, rather.
00:31Dry for most of the rest of us, but yeah, that front, that sagged south here giving us the weather the last couple of days continues to do so.
00:38More severe weather to our south as well over the last 24 hours.
00:41But for most of us, we're seeing sunshine today, still some lingering clouds with that moisture to the south.
00:46And a nice, cool, comfortable Canadian high pressure settling in, or it would be normally.
00:52A clockwise flow around high pressure areas means that it is pushing in the smoke, too.
00:57So we get cooler, drier air, but the price is smoke, unfortunately.
01:02And we're in the red for a lot of the state now due to just numerous fires across Saskatchewan, Manitoba.
01:08And you can see the smoke.
01:09A reminder that while we have been wet, most of central Canada is in quite a substantial drought here.
01:15Everything in orange is drought.
01:17The brown areas are severe drought, areas that are larger than the state of Minnesota, and even some extreme drought categories to our north.
01:26And that drought does extend into the northwestern most counties of Minnesota, but the rest of us, pretty wet here.
01:30Red air quality, that means unhealthy for everybody, and that's probably going to stick around on and off here the next few days.
01:36We're going to continue to see northerly winds into tomorrow.
01:39So now once that high pressure drifts off to the southeast, we will get back into a return flow out of the south that will slowly push a lot of that smoke, I think, back by Saturday.
01:49But that alert is out through 5 p.m. Saturday to cover that potential possibility of just kind of wafting smoke in and out.
01:55It's our theme of the summer and of our recent summers, and probably that's the new normal for our state here as we continue to warm up the continent, especially Canada.
02:05Thanks to climate change, it is definitely making things worse than what we would have seen historically.
02:11So dew points in the 40s and 50s, very comfortable air to the north.
02:15That is what's working in.
02:16Still some muggy air in far southern Minnesota, but that will dissipate overnight tonight, too.
02:20So tomorrow into the weekend, dew points stay below 60.
02:24The 60-degree mark is here for dew points.
02:27Above that is when we feel the stickiness, the mugginess, but we stay below that until probably Monday or Tuesday of next week.
02:33So a prolonged stretch that we haven't seen really this month.
02:37July is going to go down as a warmer-than-normal month of July.
02:40In fact, it could be the second warmest of the last 10 years in the books.
02:45Highs near 80 today.
02:46Tomorrow, upper 70s.
02:4770s pretty much statewide, and you can kind of copy-paste these readings for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, too.
02:53We'll get back closer to normal early next week and maybe beyond.
02:56Some of the models hinting at some heat again mid to late week next week.
03:00It is still early August.
03:02August Friday already.
03:03And some humidity, too, and that means that there will be the chance of some storms again, inevitably, once we increase that moisture.
03:10But not for a little while.
03:1181 today, 79 tomorrow.
03:14Some cooler, more comfortable nights.
03:15In fact, Thursday and Friday nights into early Friday and Saturday mornings, temperatures are around 60 in the Twin Cities.
03:2250s for most of the rest of you.
03:24So open up the windows.
03:26Give the AC a break at night at least.
03:28But we will start to see those isolated thunderstorms again by Monday, Tuesday, as those dew points slowly increase yet again.
