Fresh plume of Canadian wildfire smoke enters U.S.

High pressure continues to dominate the map in the western U.S., which helped deliver the first 50 Celsius reading of the year in North America on Tuesday, when it reached 122 in Death Valley. As a dip in the jet stream cruises the Great Lakes region, it is dragging a new round of smoke southward in its wake.

Weather Watch

More rain on the Plains. A familiar story unfolds with stalled frontal zones set to unleash more rain on Texas and the southern Plains region Wednesday. Several rounds of storms are possible on saturated soils. As such, a Level 3 of 4 flood risk exists for Austin, Waco and College Station where up to 3 to 5 inches could fall.

Lightning links

Climate.gov likely to be shut down (or turned into sketchy propaganda) after almost all staff fired.

A hurricane has never crossed the equator. Here's why.

Eastern Pacific to churn out more tropical storms before Atlantic activity begins.

Weather front brings snow and heavy rain to eastern and southern provinces of South Africa.

Long, fiery summer

Canada is blasting past average for a whole year of wildfire-charred land with most of the season ahead.

Mainly over the past month, wildfires in Canada have burned at least 8.3 million acres compared to a 7.2 million annual average. Cumulative totals are still rapidly moving upward, despite some easing of fire conditions over the south-central part of the country over the past handful of days.

The most intense action has shifted westward as high heat mixes with dry conditions to further crisp up British Columbia and Alberta.

Amid the latest trends, a new thick plume of smoke is invading the northern U.S. Wednesday like it’s an ICE agent in Los Angeles. Code red unhealthy was the rule for much of central and southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and into Montana and North Dakota early Wednesday. Some spots were seeing worse.

The smoke plume will continue to shift southeast today.

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster. Connecting weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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