An air-quality advisory warning Minnesotans to limit outdoor activities as wildfires continue to rage in Canada has ended, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Air quality has improved “dramatically” since Saturday morning, when the alert went into effect, said Daniel Dix, a meteorologist for the MPCA. The warning expired Saturday at 10 p.m.
“We had winds all day yesterday out of the northeast and that pushed (smoke) all the way to Iowa and northern Missouri,” Dix said.
He added that while smoke from the Canadian wildfires continues to make the sky appear hazy, it’s at higher levels in the atmosphere and not dangerous.
“When you look at the map on the MPCA website, we show green numbers at all the stations, which is good news,” he said.
That means people can resume outdoor activities without fear that “particulate matter” will worsen or create health problems.
Strong winds blew a campfire-smelling haze into much of Minnesota and western Wisconsin early Saturday morning, with smog reported as far south as the Minnesota-Iowa border.
Visibility dropped to less than a mile in some areas, including swaths of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
St. Paul also banned all outdoor fires Friday amid a warning that the city, like much of the state, was ripe for “extreme fire behavior” in hot, dry and windy conditions.
The fire warning is no longer in effect.