Smoky Conditions Begin To Ease In North Dakota; Drought Relinquishing Grip On State

Friday, May 19, 2023

Smoky conditions over North Dakota slowly began easing Thursday but were expected to linger into the weekend.

Wildfires this month have scorched more than 1 million acres in the western Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. A cold front that pushed into the Upper Midwest on Wednesday brought thick smoke from those fires to North Dakota, sending air quality ratings in the western half of the state into the "unhealthy" and "hazardous" areas.

Those ratings began improving Thursday afternoon, to "good" or "moderate." The rating for Bismarck during the afternoon moved from "unhealthy" to "unhealthy for sensitive groups" and then to "moderate."

"Surface smoke will diminish from north to south, but upper level smoke may keep haze in the forecast into the weekend," the National Weather Service reported.

Information on wildfires and air quality is on the state Department of Environmental Quality website, at https://deq.nd.gov/AQ/monitoring/Wildfire.aspx The federal Environmental Protection Agency's map of fire and smoke conditions is at https://fire.airnow.gov/ The AirNow mobile phone app, and many other weather apps, also include air quality information.

Drought improves Prolonged drought that has sparked the Canadian fires is continuing to improve in North Dakota.

Only 19% of the state is in some form of drought, compared with 40% last week, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor map, released Thursday.

Abnormal dryness -- the weakest category -- disappeared from north central North Dakota, while moderate drought shrunk in the west. U.S. Department of Agriculture Meteorologist Brad Rippey attributed improvements "from eastern Colorado and northwestern Kansas into western North Dakota" to "phenomenal" recent rainfall totals.

Bismarck got nearly 2 inches of rain late last week. Other totals in central and western North Dakota were as high as 5 inches.

The wildfire danger in all but extreme southwestern North Dakota on Thursday was rated "low," according to the state Department of Emergency Services.

Source: bismarcktribune.com