Smoke from Canadian Wildfires Transported into Wisconsin (Updated 7/10/2015 9:50 AM)

Perhaps you’ve noticed the sky looking a bit hazy lately. The culprit is smoke transported aloft from Canadian wildfires. The fire season in Canada began in late May, and has grown to include 168 uncontrolled burns and 273 controlled ones (as of June 29^th). Contributing factors to this active wildfire season are unusually warm temperatures, dry forests, lightning, and strong winds. While these fires stretch across a number of Provinces (and even into Alaska), those producing the most smoke are clustered over northern Alberta.

In late June a sharp trough and strong jet stream aloft sent smoke streaming southward into the United States, with a heavy band of smoke moving through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. With time this band shifted to include portions of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.


[Left] MODIS imagery from June 29th. The yellow box shows the area of fires producing the heaviest smoke, with the smoke plume contained within the light blue shaded area.	[Right] MODIS imagery from July 5th shows the smoke extends from Wisconsin eastward throughout the Great Lakes region.

MODIS Aerosol Optical Depth (from July 2^nd) providing a measure of the particle abundance in the atmospheric column. Areas in red are where the higher concentrations of smoke exist.

As these fires continue burning, hazy skies are possible for southern Wisconsin from time to time. This could make for some colorful sunrises and sunsets. Interestingly, an area of smoke descended to the ground in the wake of a cold front that crossed Wisconsin Monday and Monday night (July 6th). Many stations reported reduced visibility as low as 2 miles and people could even smell the smoke in the air.

Backscattered reflectance (June 27^th) from the High Spectral Resolution LIDAR located at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. This shows the vertical distribution of clouds and aerosols with time. Smoke aloft is seen in the light blue shaded areas between roughly 3 and 12 km above mean sea level.

A new streak of smoke can be seen on visible satellite imagery on the morning of July 10th, which can be seen in the image below. Fortunately, this smoke is located aloft and shouldn't make its way to the surface, so we are not expecting any visibility issues due to the smoke on the surface. The projected movement of the smoke streak can also be seen in the image below.

SPM/MRC/Schultz