Smoke Advisory issued for Central Nebraska

HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) – Waking up on Wednesday morning, folks in Hastings may have noticed the smoke in the air.

It polluted the air quality so much, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a Smoke Advisory for the area until Thursday.

The smoke was up in the upper atmosphere, but fell closer to the ground thanks to a cold front that moved into the area.

“One of the things we look for of course is wind direction, but also smoke tends to settle to the ground behind a cold front, explained Mike Mortiz, the Warning Coordinating Meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Hastings. “That’s what we had earlier this week. That smoke was in the upper part of the atmosphere, but the front brought it down to the ground, and now it’s just settled here.”

With rain forecasted for this weekend, the relief could be on the way very soon.

”One of the simplest ways to understand it is precipitation rains it out of the atmosphere. It sort of brings all the particulates down with it and that sort of cleans out the atmosphere,” said Moritz.

For more information, visit the Local4 Weather app for our meteorologist’s take on the smoke.

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