Source: Inside Climate News
Excerpt:
Nick Witcraft knew he’d have a busy morning when his phone notified him that Canadian wildfire smoke was drifting across the U.S.-Canadian border eight days ago.
Witcraft, a meteorologist for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), is among a team of state forecasters who issue air quality alerts whenever a wildfire or any other major polluting event poses a potential health risk to the public.
It used to be a far more arduous process, Witcraft said, taking up to five hours as he and his colleagues coordinated with federal agencies and tailored individual alerts for cities and towns that might be affected. But in 2021, MPCA made several changes to its alert system after wildfires on the western side of the U.S. and Canada sent massive plumes of smoke into Minnesota, triggering a record 16 air quality alerts that tested the agency’s ability to act quickly.
To address that, MPCA switched from issuing individual forecasts for cities and towns to sending out broader regional ones. The agency also developed a computer program to streamline their messages to the public.
Those changes shaved hours off the alert process, Witcraft said, and as wildfire smoke wafted across the Minnesota border from some 80 Canadian blazes this month, he and his colleagues were able to wrap up their duties and send out a statewide alert well before noon. “Before 2021, I doubt we would have gotten an alert out before mid-afternoon,” he said. “The whole process was done by 11 a.m.”
Read more: The Midwest Could Be in for Another Smoke-Filled Summer. Here’s How States Are Preparing
