Monday Evening Northland Forecast: 6/2/2025

Air Quality Getting Worse

The air quality in the Northland continues to worsen, as more wildfires take place, and spread in central and western Canada. Most of the smoke we are getting comes from Saskatchewan and Manitoba. But actually, half the provinces in Canada have forest fires blazing right now. We will not see this end anytime soon.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency just issued new alerts for the entire state. For the first time ever, they issued a “Maroon” warning for the northwest section of the state, which means the air is ‘Hazardous” for everyone. The other alerts vary from “Very Unhealthy” to “Unhealthy” to “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.” The whole northern 2/3 of the state is in the top 3 categories, while only the far SE and SW corners of the state are in the lowest level (sensitive groups).

A strong cold front is pushing across the state this evening, from west to east. As it does, showers and thunderstorms are developing ahead of the front. Most of them are not very strong, but at least they are providing some much needed rain for most of the state. The forest fire smoke is following along, in the wake of the cold front. So, conditions from the smoke will actually get worse, before they get better. The air quality won’t really start to improve til after noon on Wednesday, when the Air Quality Alerts are allowed to expire.

Look for some rain overnight tonight, into Tuesday morning. Amounts may be from a quarter to a half inch near Duluth. Tuesday will be a cooler day, with highs in the mid 60s, along with mostly cloudy skies, and more smoke. The second half of Wednesday is when the sun should reappear, with a high about 75, and some clearing of the smoke will take place.

So, hang in there. Your eyes are probably as itchy and scratchy as mine are. This won’t last forever. But, it will be with us for a while.

FOX 21 Meteorologist Karl Spring