Hazy Skies This Summer As Canadian Fires Impact Our Air

This is getting to be the worst part of summer. I can take 100-degree days, I can stand 80% humidity, but smoky days suuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Another summer and we again have wildfire smoke filtering into the air over South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. This time, from wildfires in Canada.

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Summer is Becoming Smoke Season

NEED TO KNOW: Is It Safe To Use Air Conditioning In Wildfire Smoke?

I'm lucky enough not to have any chronic health issues that are made worse by the wildfire smoke. It must be horrible for folks who deal with that stuff. But, for me, the smoke ruins what summer in South Dakota is about: fresh air.

Here on the trundra of SD, we live so much of the year cooped up and hiding from the cold. Not the unpleasant, inconvenient cold, the feels like your eyeball may freeze in the two minutes it takes to get gas. So, when the temperature at night gets into the 40s, I want to have the windows open. This is prime 'air out the house season.' And when it's smoky, I'm back to battening down the hatches and sealing the house again.

Where the Smoke in South Dakota's Skies is Coming From

According to the BBC, thousands of people and entire towns in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Canadian provinces just north of South Dakota, have been evacuated in the face of over 80 fires burning "out of control."

That is out of 166 currently burning in Canada.

The Weather Channel is saying that the Upper Midwest's location, just south of the fires, puts us in the crosshairs of the smoke as winds push it south.

How Bad Will The Smoke Be?

Sioux Falls probably won't get it as bad as parts of Minnesota this weekend, but I still expect a hazy, gross day on Saturday here in town.

LOOK: Munger Shaw Wildfire Drone Footage Of Aftermath

With any luck, a cold front from the west will help push the smoke away at the beginning of next week. "That means relief from smoky skies and air quality issues should at least temporarily arrive as the smoke is pushed northward into Canada and away from the U.S.," according to the Weather Channel.