AccuWeather's Brett Anderson reports air quality is improving for the Plains and Midwest due to the Canadian wildfires weakening. Recent rainfall has soaked Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Wildfire activity in Canada has decreased notably following several rainstorms, particularly in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. This reduction in fires has led to less smoke drifting into the U.S. Midwest and Great Lakes, resulting in improved air quality across these regions. The peak of the Canadian wildfire season has passed, and current trends indicate a continued decline in fire activity.

Meteorologists are monitoring areas around the Great Lakes and southern Quebec for potential dryness, but no significant fire activity is currently reported there. Looking ahead, experts suggest that the focus may shift to wildfire activity in the western United States, which could affect air quality in central and eastern parts of the country.

Canadian wildfires weaken; Air quality improves in Plains, Midwest

We're gonna talk about what has been going on with the recent fire activity, or sometimes lack thereof now, across Canada. Let's start with back in June. Yeah, back in June we had fires galore across northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, parts of Alberta, Northwest Territories, hundreds of fires, many of those very large fires which were not even being treated because they were in areas very hard to get to. So it was just producing endless amount of smoke across much of Western Canada, and with the steering winds coming in from the Northwest to Southeast, a lot of that smoke was coming down into the upper Midwest, especially parts of the Great Lakes, and then from time to time, even down into the Northeast. And now look at the map. I mean, I can go back and forth a couple times. So this was early into June, and when you fast forward here into this next graphic, what do you see? Yeah, I see a lot less fire, which is great news, and the reason being we've had a lot of rain over the past 30 days, especially across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Several rainstorms have really put a tamper down to some of the fires up across that region. So fire activity is greatly diminished, which is great news across that region. At this point in time, the trends for, average trends for fire across this area is downward. We've already moved past the peak of normal fire activity across central and northern Canada for the year, so that's good news. So we just have to watch if we see any more drought developing and any more fires coming up in September. That's something we'll have to continue to monitor, but right now, it looks like the dry areas right now are focused more across the upper Great Lakes. So we talked about the recent rain that has helped reduce some of that. How about the wind flow? How has that changed? Yeah, yeah, we've had a big area of high pressure. July was very hot across the Great Lakes and Northeast, and we're starting to cool down now, of course, but that high pressure ridge has been dominant for the past 20 to 30 days or so, and with the placement of that high across the Midwest Ohio Valley, the clockwise circulation around that high has kept most of that smoke up across central and northern Canada and away from the Great Lakes and Northeast. Yeah, and that's been something to enjoy, of course, with the lower humidity and not having to deal with the smoke and the fire concerns as much, but of course, going forward, you touched on this a bit, and of course, our long-range team, when they put out the fall forecast, we touched on the fire risk. Yeah, the fire risk as we go forward through the early part of the fall, we do highlight an area around the Great Lakes because we do think there's gonna be continued drying out across the area, so that's one area we have to watch for. Also, southern Quebec, we are monitoring that area. No fire activity now, but it has been very dry over the past 30 days, but I'll tell you what, I think most of our focus, instead of Canada, it's gonna be across the United States here over the next 30, 40, 50 days or so because we have a lot of fire activity across the western U.S., and if we're gonna get some smoke into the central and eastern part of the country, I think the bulk of that is gonna be coming in from the western U.S. instead of Canada. And that's a perfect line to end on that we're not done with it, it's just gonna be a different location than it may be coming from. All right, AccuAther Canadian expert, Brett Anderson, thank you so much for joining us.

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Breakdown