Currently in the Twin Cities — August 18, 2023: Smoke sticks around on Friday

The weather, currently.

The latest drought monitor shows the biggest improvement in Minnesota drought of the whole summer. The Twin Cities area is no longer in severe drought but rather moderate drought thanks to 1 to 3 inches of rain in the past 7 days.

Smoke is expected to continue to move into Minnesota into Friday in the wake of Wednesday night’s cool front, prompting statewide air quality alerts into late Friday. There’s still a question as to how much smoke and for how long however. The heat is building in for the weekend into next week, setting us up for a potential string of 90 degree days and dry weather.

— Sven Sundgaard

What you need to know, currently.

Canada’s hellish wildfire season keeps getting worse.

An evacuation order was announced on Wednesday for the entire city of Yellowknife (pop. 22,000), capital of the Northwest Territories as wildfires encroached from all sides. Yellowknife is one of the largest cities in Canada’s far north, and communications, power, and supplies have been difficult to obtain as fires continue to grow.

Residents must vacate the city by noon Friday, and cars and buses along with fuel tankers are being escorted by police through thick smoke on the last remaining open road out of town. Those in hospitals or otherwise needing extra care will be airlifted. It’s one of the largest evacuation efforts in Canadian history.

This is by far the worst wildfire season in Canada’s modern records — with about twice the normal total land area burned so far with still about half of the season remaining. More than 13 million hectares (30 million acres) have burned so far, about three times the size of Switzerland.

Cabin Radio, an independent publication based in Yellowknife, will have the latest updates through the weekend.

—Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

The fires in Maui have struck at the heart of Hawaiian heritage, and if you’d like to support survivors, here are good places to start:

The fires burned through the capital town of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the ancestral and present home to native Hawaiians on their original unceded lands. One of the buildings destroyed was the Na ‘Aikane o Maui cultural center, a gathering place for the Hawaiian community to organize and celebrate.

If you’d like to help the community rebuild and restore the cultural center, a fund has been established that is accepting donations — specify “donation for Na ‘Aikane” on this Venmo link.