High level wildfire smoke heading into Michigan, See how long it lasts

A large patch of wildfire smoke is moving into Michigan now. Here’s the forecast for its movement across our state.

With the clear skies now we can definitely get a good look at the smoke location on the satellite imagery. The smoke is moving southeast out of southern Canada, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin into northwest Lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.

The best computer model we have at forecasting the movement and thickness of upper-level smoke is just below. When the model shows orange and red over the sky it’s noticeably thick smoke. Aqua and blue are thinner patches of smoke.

Wildfire smoke should thicken over Lower Michigan skies tonight. Wednesday will ba a hazy day with lots of wildfire smoke in the air. Everything then shows the smoke rolling out of Michigan during Thursday.

This won’t be a long lasting bout with smoke in the air. We are now into the time of year when the strong westerly jetstream winds carry storm systems through the Great Lakes every few days. The next strong cold front will bring a line of thunderstorms through Friday. The rain and northern wind after the frontal passage will scour the smoke out of the air.

Also it will be unstable in the chilly northwest wind flow this weekend. This makes clouds over Michigan and doesn’t allow us to see wildfire smoke.

But tonight’s sunset, tomorrow morning’s sunrise and Wednesday night’s sunset could be stellar smoky sky shows from nature. Keep your eye on the sky as dusk and dawn approach.