Smoke From Canada, Not California, Causes Hazy Skies In Wisconsin Over Weekend

While smoke from California’s wildfires has reportedly reached as far as New York, the weekend haze in Wisconsin was actually due to fires in Canada and overheated plants.

Visibility was limited over the hot and sticky weekend. The normally blue sky was milky white while a bluish haze blanketed the ground. With massive wildfires burning in California it would be expected that Wisconsin was getting a whiff of the destruction. But that wasn’t the case, says National Weather Service Meteorologist Jeff Boyne of La Crosse.

“This past weekend was actually more due to wildfires and forest fires going on across western Canada and also in the Pacific Northwest,” said Boyne.

Boyne said computer modeling of wind patterns shows the Canadian smoke circulated around a high pressure zone and blew into the Badger State staying at around 6,000 feet in the air.

As for the bluish haze on the ground, Boyne said that was water vapor exhaled by plants trying to stay cool in the summer heat.

“As that moisture is transpired by the plants as they try to keep themselves cooler it adds moisture to the air and it sort of gives a hazy appearance to the skies as you start looking toward the bluffs or the horizons,” he said.

Boyne said NWS models show Wisconsin will see the smoke clear during the early part of the week but it could return.

“It looks like we’re starting to get out of the smoke a little bit with time here,” said Boyne. “We might see a return as we get toward the weekend again as more smoke comes down from Canada into the region.”