Currently in the Twin Cities — June 28, 2023: Strong storms are possible Wednesday

Plus, 'apocalyptic' wildfire smoke returns to the US Midwest.

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Eric Holthaus & Sven Sundgaard
June 27, 2023

The weather, currently.

Strong storms are possible Wednesday

We have yet another air quality alert through Wednesday night as Canadian wildfire smoke has returned to Minnesota. This is the 23rd such alert- a record, beating the previous 21 alerts set in 2021. We average just 2 to 3 alerts per year normally. We have a chance of severe storms late Wednesday as muggy air returns and an upper level disturbance will touch off storms. The primary threats are large hail and high wind gusts in some storms. Thursday could yet have a few isolated storms. Things look quiet for the weekend but we’re heating back up next week.

What you can do, currently.

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What you need to know, currently.

Smoke-filled skies shrouded the cities of the US Midwest on Tuesday, the latest in a chapter of the months-long public health fallout from the worst wildfires in Canada’s modern history.

At the peak of the smoke, Lake Michigan was invisible from downtown Milwaukee — just one-half mile away. Wisconsin has had more public health warnings for poor air quality in the past 10 weeks than in the past 10 years combined. At one point Tuesday morning, Chicago’s air quality ranked worst in the world.

Adam Mahoney of Chicago’s Capital B writes the effects of this particular part of the climate emergency go beyond physical health: “the visually apocalyptic nature of the recent wildfires, coupled with disruptions in day-to-day life, threaten to create mental health struggles”, particularly for Black folks and marginalized people.

Mahoney spoke with Vickie Mays, a professor at UCLA whose work focuses on racial disparities of physical and mental health. Here’s Mays:

In the Black community, we have to recognize that climate makes health disparities. So we can see this and say, wildfires are a big problem for us. So now we got to worry, and are we prepared? Are we going to be ensuring that those people who need a new mask have gotten them? Is it going to make us want to start addressing the climate disparities because it just reminds us of who’s the most vulnerable?

Vickie Mays

And of course, cities like New Delhi, Kathmandu, and Nairobi are plagued with poor air quality and routinely rank among the worst in the world. The chronic health effects from fossil fuel burning is one of the leading causes of death in the world, killing more than 9 million people every year. That deserves to be front page news every day.